


Birds Flying High, You Know How I Feel

by Katharoses, OriginalCeenote



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Captured by HYDRA, First Kiss, Genetic Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Realism, Moderate Violence, Natasha Romanoff is a Matchmaker, No Smut, Period-Typical Racism, Pining, Sam Wilson Talks To Birds, Steve Rogers is a Witch with Dryad Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 07:29:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11157138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katharoses/pseuds/Katharoses, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote
Summary: The serum magnified everything.Everything. Including magic.Includinglove.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story accompanies [Katharoses'](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Katharoses/pseuds/Katharoses) gorgeous drawing entered into the Captain America Reverse Big Bang posted on Tumblr.  
>    
> Expect mutual pining. Angst. Hurt/comfort. Magical realism. Lots of unwanted advice (from humans, non-humans and gods alike). A man with the gift of bird speech. A witch in tune with the earth, who isn’t afraid to fly. And more ridiculousness than you can shake a stick at.  
>    
> Oh, just _read_ it.  
>   

[](http://imgur.com/LVfXavp)

   
**1930, Brooklyn**  
   
“Ow! Quit it, Buck!” Steve hissed as he jerked his head back, out of Bucky’s pinching grip. He ducked his best friend’s attempt at daubing his nose and cut lip with the cool, damp rag. The tweedy cloth bloomed with a widening crimson smear, and the scent of iron tickled Steve’s senses, making him nervy and a little sick. Bucky wasn’t amused, or impressed. His full pink mouth tightened into a thin line.  
   
“C’mon, punk, hold still. Lemme clean it-”  
   
“It hurts when you do it!”  
   
“I won’t make it hurt, I promise… hold still, Rogers! Yer gettin’ blood all over your good shirt!” Bucky brandished the rag, but every time he so much as raised it toward the cuts, Steve flinched back. Bucky narrowed his eyes and growled in annoyance.  
   
“S’already ruined,” Steve muttered, and Bucky snatched at his face, grabbing his chin more firmly to make him hold still this time. Steve rolled his eyes and let out an aggrieved breath.  
   
“Keep blowin’ like that, and you’ll ruin it some more. You’re spittin’ blood when you do that, y’know.”  
   
And Steve knew Bucky was doing his best. He was.  
   
It was bad enough that he couldn’t keep up with Bucky, even on the best of days. Worse, still, was the way that the rest of the boys in the neighborhood sized him up; Steve Rogers barely reached the tip of James Barnes’ ear, and, more than once, they demanded to know why Bucky wasted his time hanging out with a scrawny little kid. They persisted with this misconception, even though Steve Rogers had a voice that cracked a year or two early, he read books three grades ahead of the rest of the kids in their class, and he had a _mouth_ on him that got him sent to confession every Thursday, led firmly by the arm by Sarah pinching the back of it in a death grip, fuming all the way about “If your father were still here, young man, you’d _surely_ get it.” And Steve would go along quietly, because you didn’t sass Sarah Rogers. Not if you were smart.  
   
Bucky knew the Rogers’ medicine cabinet like the back of his hand. Swabs, cotton balls, iodine, aspirin tablets, plasters, tooth powder, witch hazel, eucalyptus rub, Musterole, Vaseline, rubbing alcohol; they kept the basics right within reach. Bucky also knew where Sarah kept the spare, torn and stained washcloths in the linen pantry and the spare sheets for the couch. He was a regular guest on the weekends and whenever the boys wanted to share the holiday, or a day when school was called off due to snow.  
   
   
*  
   
He’d patched Steve up more than once, and he’d gotten in trouble more than once with his own ma, walking Steve home after dark and ending up late for supper. But Winifred Barnes finally marched up to Sarah Rogers’ third-floor apartment with the loose floorboard outside the door, knocked impatiently, and saw something she recognized in Sarah’s blue eyes, ringed with deep shadows and drooping with exhaustion.  
   
A kindred spirit.  
   
But Winifred wasn’t going to let things go that easily. She folded her plump arms beneath her bosom and informed her, “That boy of yours is trouble. He made my Bucky come home late _again_ , and I won’t stand for it. Not when he’s walking your son home through _this_ neighborhood.”  
   
“The view must be nice,” Sarah snapped back.  
   
“What view?”  
   
“From behind your fancy, white picket fence. From the window of your castle, Miss High-and-Mighty. And our neighborhood is the least of your worries, when you should be more worried about _me_. I should wash your mouth out with soap for calling my son _trouble_.”  
   
Winifred decided she liked her already, but she jutted her jaw another notch and stood even straighter. “Think you could, do you?”  
   
“And worse.” Sarah raised one blonde brow and planted her hand on her hip. Without looking away from Winifred’s scowl, she leaned back and called into her apartment, “Bucky! Your mother’s here for you!” Winifred heard two boyish voices groaning in disappointment in the background and sighed in exasperation.  
   
“You’d better have your shoes on and your things together, James Barnes!” Winifred warned.  
   
“Quit your bellowing from the hall like that. You sound like a fish wife. You’re giving my neighbors a show,” Sarah told her dryly. “I’ll go get him, if you think you’re too good for my place?”  
   
“Not at all,” Winifred told her simply, lowering her arms as Sarah stepped back to let her cross the threshold. Winifred could tell she did so reluctantly as she entered. She noticed with a sigh of satisfaction that Sarah’s apartment smelled like chicken soup and bleach. The ball of tension in Winifred’s gut uncoiled a bit when she recognized both.  
   
“I was about to feed the boys leftovers,” Sarah said unapologetically. “I just got home from my shift.”  
   
“You work?” Winifred’s eyes were roving around the living room. Everything was neat as a pin and in its place. There were photos in tarnished silver frames hanging on the walls and leaning on side tables. Winifred approached the pair of pictures on the wall, and her first glance at the one of a handsome, big man in an Army uniform told Winifred all she needed to know.  
   
“Explains how we eat,” Sarah countered. “And we eat well.” There was pride in her voice, and Winifred decided to ignore the worn throw blanket on the sofa and the places where it was a little threadbare, and the chipped teapot on the kitchen table. Some of her furnishings looked secondhand. In these times, that was nothing new.  
   
But what struck Winifred were the plants. Sarah’s home was crawling with different plants. Ferns, pots of creeping charlie, spider plants, coleus, and an impressive African violet. Small jars of seedlings flourished by the window over the couch. Sarah also had flowers - geraniums and marigolds - growing in the window box outside.  
   
“I’ve got spices upstairs, out on the roof, and a few other things,” Sarah mentioned. “Better than what you can get at the store.”  
   
Winifred huffed. “Not even worth it, for the prices they charge. You’re smart.”  
   
“Let me know if you want me to send James home with anything, if you let him come back here.”  
   
And Winifred felt her wavering a little. She was gruff, but there was hope in her voice.  
   
“It’s not too much for me to want my boy home at a decent hour. That’s all.” Bucky and Steve wandered out, with Bucky crammed hastily into his jacket. One side of his collar was flipped up and he looked rumpled. He carried his shoes in his hand, looking flustered at his mother’s arrival, and her ire.  
   
“Someone wants to come straight home after school tomorrow,” she informed him.  
   
“Ma, I’m sorry, we-” Steve stopped him, laying a protective hand on Bucky’s shoulder.  
   
“It was my fault, ma’am. I talked him into another game of stickball.” Bucky was staring down at the floor while Steve pressed on. “He really meant to come home.”  
   
“But instead, he came here with you,” Winifred pointed out. “You two can’t lose track of time like that. It’s irresponsible.” She pointed out the window; it was dark already, and the street lamps had just come on. Bucky and Steve wore identical looks of shame.  
   
“Sorry, ma’am.”  
   
“Sorry, Ma.”  
   
“Let’s get going, then,” Winifred told her son. “Let’s leave them to their supper.” She didn’t tell Bucky that his father was waiting at home with the belt. He’d only drag his feet even more all the way home. George was home from the front, honorably discharged. He still walked with a noticeable limp, and he listened to news reports on their staticky sounding radio with a faraway, troubled look. Winifred felt like he was still miles away from her, most days, even as she held him close. Rebecca was still in diapers when he was first shipped out; she didn’t notice the difference in him when he returned. Bucky didn’t know the man who came back, who wore his father’s face but spoke more sharply and lost his temper at the drop of a hat. George Barnes found scant comfort in the bottom of a whiskey bottle, and little else.  
   
“I’m Sarah, by the way.”  
   
Bucky’s mother paused by the door. “Winifred.”  
   
“When you’re in less of a hurry, come by one of these days for tea. I’ll make gingersnaps.”  
   
“Gingersnaps,” Winifred teased, shaking her head. “Those aren’t real cookies. I’ll make my macaroons.”  
   
“When are you gonna make ‘em, Ma?” Bucky asked, distracted by the possibility of his mother’s baking. Bucky had a sweet tooth.  
   
“You haven’t had Ma’s gingersnaps,” Steve chimed in. His face lit up with his boast. “Ma can outbake everybody in the neighborhood!”  
   
“We’ll see about that,” Winifred told them. “All right then, Sarah Rogers. Tea, it is. After church. I’ll bring the macaroons.”  
   
“We’re done with Mass by eleven.”  
   
“Then eleven-thirty, on the dot.”  
   
Their tones were clipped, but the tension between them was gone.  
   
Once Winifred and Bucky had left, Sarah told Steve, “Wash your hands. It’s time to eat.”  
   
“Yes, Ma.”  
   
“Don’t ‘Yes, Ma’ me, Steven Grant. You told me you’d been home ‘for a while’ when I came in.”  
   
“We might’ve… been looking for stones at the park after we were done playin’ stickball.” The Adam’s apple in his throat bobbed when he swallowed, a gesture that grew more prominent over time; Steve was small and slight, nothing but knobby bones and spare, taut flesh.  
   
Sarah sighed. “Stones.”  
   
“For… spells,” he explained.  
   
“Yes, I know what they’re for,” she scolded.  
   
“I found some good ones, Ma.”  
   
“I don’t care how good they were. You got your friend in trouble. And you stayed out too late.” Steve turned and went to the sink, and his ears were turning pink with embarrassment. “It’s not good to stay out too late. People around here can’t mind their own business as it is. They’re only too happy to pay too much attention to _people like us._.”  
   
*  
   
   
Back in the day, they called Sarah Rogers and her kind “kitchen witches.”  
   
It was nothing new.  
   
Sarah was a practical woman, and she kept her craft as simple and clean as her shabby apartment. No complicated incantations or dark magic. No spells involving blood. She avoided recipes that involved the large, cast-iron cauldron that her mother passed down to her as a wedding gift; her kitchen was tiny, there wasn’t enough room to spread everything out, and she didn’t want the neighbors to complain about the smell.  
   
Steve would bring her stones from time to time, and soil from the park. Once in a while, Bucky would help him look for the best stones, teasing him when their findings would weigh down Steve’s pockets, making his pants ride even lower around his skinny waist. Sarah would reward them with her gingersnaps for gathering these offerings, as well as small plants and herbs. She put both boys to work harvesting her herbs on the rooftop, showing them how to only pull the mature plants and leave behind the tender seedlings. Steve and Bucky grew nimble and skilled at this task.  
   
Bucky spent more time at Steve’s apartment than he did in his own house, despite the difference in their finances. Bucky’s home was crowded; he gave up his own room for his aunt Gertrude, who moved in with them after she lost her husband to a grenade blast. Becca was underfoot and constantly nosed her way into Bucky and Steve’s schemes, because tattling on them was her end game. Whenever they went to Bucky’s after school, Aunt Gert gave them a relieved smile, hurried off to don her best hat and purse, and told Bucky, “She’ll have more fun with you than she would with me and the girls, sweetie. Mind your sister.” And off she hustled to the secondhand boutiques or the market for a pint of whatever she could afford.  
   
Steve’s apartment meant freedom.  
   
But Steve’s home was also saturated in calm, nurturing magic.  
   
Sarah often burned incense to keep away the bad spirits; she always burned it after Steve recovered from one of his ubiquitous bouts of croup or fever, a precaution that went beyond her reliance on bleach. Bucky was accustomed to the various fragrances of incense mingling with the tea leaves she used in her decoctions and for regular consumption. Troublesome tummy? Sarah had tea for it. Cough? Sarah had just the herbs for you.  
   
The Rogers’ home was always comfortable, thrumming with a soothing energy. All of her furnishings were natural fibers, wood, cotton and flax, and pure metals; Sarah set Bucky and Steve to polishing her silver once a season, chastised them when they grumbled, and bribed them with sweets.  
   
They went to church more for appearances than faith. Steve needed the fellowship, Sarah told him when she would check him over to make sure he washed properly and fussed over the tuck of his shirt. Bucky went to temple with his mother and aunt while George brooded at home. They were regulars at Mass and at confession; Sarah told Steve that it built character.  
   
Sarah never had to throw out rotted produce in her icebox. She used every green thing before it could spoil, out of thrift and instinct. Sarah never burned the bread or scorched the soup. Sarah always stopped in on their elderly neighbors with liniments and teas, sensing when they needed it, often before they showed any symptoms. Nate Fury, the elevator operator, swore by the herbs Sarah gave him to relieve his gout. Sarah knew he carried a loaded .38 in his lunch box, and he was tall and intimidating looking, with steely brown eyes, but he always had a smile for Sarah, and she didn’t blame him for being cautious. This was Brooklyn, after all.  
   
*  
   
By the age of twelve, Steve knew he was unique, but that he was not alone.  
　  
Bucky knew there was something different about him from the moment they met. He watched the skinny, slight blond near the periphery of the ball field across from the school yard, idly sketching and furtively looking around. His clothing was careworn and faded, and Bucky noticed a hole in his shoe sole, and the telltale patch of newspaper where he'd wadded it up to prolong the life of his shoes, because they didn't come cheap.  
　  
Little Stevie Rogers didn't come from money. It was just one more thing that made him fair game. Bucky wasn't exactly a swell, but the fellas around the neighborhood included him in stickball and trips to the pharmacy for candy (or to filch cigarettes). In a neighborhood like his, it was better not to stand out. Not to be too different.  
　  
Apparently nobody mentioned it to _this_ kid, or told him it wasn't normal to talk to squirrels. Bucky looked up from his oncoming pitch and saw Steve sitting against the trunk of a large oak, hand paused over his sketch book, smiling, and _talking_ to a plump squirrel standing a couple of feet away. It's beady, dark eyes were transfixed, and Bucky watched the creature edge _closer_ to Steve, drawn to his voice, which Bucky barely heard from the home plate. In all his life, Bucky had never seen a squirrel move closer to a person - Becca never managed to touch one despite the way she chased them whenever they appeared in the Barnes' backyard - but this kid was _talking_ to one, and odder still, the thing was acting like he _understood_ him.  
　  
So. Weird.  
　  
"Guess I'll wear my heavy jacket tomorrow, then." A simple enough declaration, and perfectly normal if any of the boys around them, or if Bucky himself, had asked the question. Not so normal in response to a silent squirrel twitching its bushy tail.  
　  
"Buck! Batter up!" Jackie, his pitcher, stood slapping the ball into his mitt impatiently as he waited on Bucky to get his act together. That jerked Bucky from his trance, annoying him in the process. There he was, wasting his time watching that Rogers kid.  
　  
When he mentioned the incident to his ma in a scoffing tone that night over dinner, Winifred gave him a pointed look over the mashed potatoes.  
　  
"Perhaps he's lonely. You should chat him up."  
　  
"Ma." Bucky toyed with his peas. "The other fellas might talk."  
　  
"Some people are different. Special. I know plenty of women who talk to their plants. Or who just talk to themselves." Winifred pitied the latter. Some of the men who came back from combat did that very thing.  
　  
_But none of them act like the plants talk back._ Bucky left this unsaid as he gulped down his milk.  
　  
Winifred didn't tell him about the others.  
　  
There were rumors of the gifted ones, of "kitchen witches," of men and women with "the sight." They went about their day, leading mundane enough lives, until something remarkable happened. Until tongues began wagging.  
　  
There was Lucky John, the man who ran into the street in midday traffic moments before the Miller boy ran out to catch his stray ball, scooping him up before the green Ford could run him over. Like he _knew._ Or Margali, the fortune teller at Coney Island whose predictions _did_ come true; her stand was often empty as she stood there, frowning and sipping her tea. There were things people didn't want to know. Or Moses, who turned his burning car over to rescue his wife, who was trapped inside when they were sideswiped by a fire truck at an intersection. Flipped it like a tin can, according to bystanders. Desperation made a man strong; love apparently made him _invincible_. These were gifted souls, walking among ordinary folk.  
   
The fire eater at Coney Island actually _ate_ fire. And he could create it with a snap of his fingers.  
   
Bucky wrote off all the tales as bunk, just nonsense that the boys at the park would whisper and snicker over when they were lining up at the plate.  
   
Until he really _met_ Steve Rogers.  
   
Being different got you beat up in their neighborhood. (Or in every neighborhood, during that time.) And it was over something so dumb and everyday. Bucky could have ignored it, but…  
   
He looked so small and vulnerable. And so _angry._ Bucky was just leaving the store with Jamie Finnigan, a small paper bag of penny candy gripped in his fist, and he heard the scuffle before he saw it. Particularly a strident male voice, indignant and youthful. Bucky saw the boys - most of them his usual friends - circled around two who were shoving each other for all they were worth. Jamie elbowed Bucky, eyes round with delight and eagerness.  
   
“C’mon, we’re gonna miss it!”  
   
“Oh, no,” Bucky muttered, but he scrambled after Jamie, who darted across the street when he reached the corner, earning himself several annoyed car horns and an older woman’s snap of “Watch yourselves, you little brats!” as they can past. They reached the edge of the park, and the boys’ bodies parted enough for Bucky to notice that a small, familiar body was lying in the dirt.  
   
Stevie Rogers. Pants torn, nose bleeding, and now dirty enough that his ma was gonna throw a fit. Bucky watched him reach up and wipe his fingertips through the blood pooling on his upper lip. But his blue eyes were filled with _rage_ , and he staggered back up to his feet, raising his bony fists.  
   
“You want some more, Peter Pan?” It was Richard, the same kid who used to steal Bucky’s marbles in first grade. Big, loud, and burly, face peppered with acne and mean, piggy, dark eyes. Bucky didn’t have any patience for him then, and he sure as hell didn’t, now. “Here,” he told Jamie. “Hold these.” He shoved the small bag at him, and Jamie tried to tug on Bucky’s sleeve.  
   
“Bucky-”  
   
“Leggo,” he ordered, voice sharp. Bucky stalked over to the group and shoved his way between two of ‘em, earning himself cries of “Watch it, Barnes!”  
   
“Leave him alone!” Richard had Steve by the front of his shirt, but Bucky shoved Richard back and jerked Steve back by his skinny arm. There was no meat on him, and he felt him tense in his grip. Richard shoved Bucky back.  
   
“Make me, ya pansy! You’re both a coupla pansies, Barnes! He is, anyway, and you are for standin’ up for ‘im!”  
   
“I ain’t a pansy,” Bucky grunted. Rogers could speak up for himself in that regard, but Bucky would at least step between him and Richard punching him again in the face. Steve shook himself from Bucky’s grip.  
   
“I ain’t, either, ya mook!” Steve cried, and that was real rage Bucky heard in his voice, and to Bucky’s surprise, Steve shoved _him_ out of the way and was swinging at Richard again, like he hadn’t learned his lesson.  
   
Richard just cocked him one, and the crack against Steve’s cheek sickened Bucky. He watched him nearly lifted off the ground with that punch. “ROGERS!” Bucky’s voice tore from his throat. He heard the “oooohs!” from the crowd of boys and their jeers, and he wanted to shout at all of them, “What’s _wrong_ with you?!” Steve planted in the dirt again, and this time, he wasn’t hopping back up. That narrow chest was heaving, and he was reeling, down on his back.  
   
Bucky had enough.  
   
He spun on Richard, who was holding up his hands. “What? What’re you gonna do about it, Barnes? Gonna be a crybaby like him?”  
   
Bucky ran right up on him and ground his foot down on Richard’s, hard enough to make him roar, and he shoved his shoulder into him, unbalancing him, and he kicked his foot around the back of his knee, hooking him and toppling him to the ground. And Bucky remembered all those days in first grade, when Richard took his stuff or made him cry, sending him away with a face stinging from one of his punches or dirty clothes. He got up over Richard and punched him, and the tenor of his friends reactions changed from amusement to shock.  
   
“What’s gotten into Buck?” Jamie muttered to Frank, who was scratching his head beneath his wool cap.  
   
“I don’t know, but he’s lost his mind,” he decided.  
   
And Bucky whaled on him, ignoring Richard’s outstretched hands and attempts to block his punches and kicks. “Dirty piece of garbage… how’s _that_ feel? Huh? You like that?”  
   
“Buck!” Jamie cried out. “Jesus Christ, Barnes!” Kids in Bucky’s neighborhood weren’t shy about using the words they heard their parents throwing around in mixed company.  
   
“DON’T!” That was Steve. Bucky heard him through a red haze and the pounding in his ears. “Bucky… QUIT IT! Let him up!” And that was _Steve_ , lunging for him, grabbing Bucky’s arm to keep him from punching Richard again, practically _hanging on him_ with all his weight.  
   
“Let go, Rogers! I’m not done!”  
   
But Jamie shook off his stupor and shoved the candy bag at Frank, who took advantage of the opportunity and stole a sourball. Jamie helped Steve pull Bucky off of Richard, who was spitting epithets from bloodied lips.  
   
“What’re you sticking up for _him_ for?” Richard accused, jerking his finger in Steve’s direction. “He’s a weird little freak! Talks to the ground and to crickets an’ shit!”  
   
Bucky didn’t want to admit that Steve had done any such thing. He’d _seen_ him do it, but it wasn’t worth punching his lights out. “He was minding his business,” Bucky claimed. Richard lurched to his feet and spit on the ground at Bucky’s feet, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.  
   
“Fine, then. He’s still a freak. And you’re a freak, too, Barnes, if you hang out with him.”  
   
Bucky was breathing hard, and Steve was too, and Bucky noticed an odd, troubling little wheeze coming out of him. “You okay?”  
   
“M’fine,” Steve told him gruffly, and he let go of Bucky’s arm, giving him a little shove in the process.  
   
Bucky felt confused and indignant. “No need to thank me, squirt,” he muttered as Richard stomped off with his friends, throwing Bucky an obscene gesture on his way.  
   
“Okay. I won’t.” Steve got up and righted his shirt, tucking it back in, but there were blood stains and a small tear beneath the collar. Steve walked off, toward a tall elm tree, and Bucky watched him retrieve a small journal and his jacket. At least that wasn’t ruined; that would cost this kid’s ma more to replace. Clothes didn’t grow on trees. Steve snatched up his belongings and stalked off, but Bucky followed him, trotting to keep up.  
   
“Hey! HEY! C’mere! What’s up? What was that about back there?”  
   
“Leave me alone.”  
   
“Easy… hey! Rogers! Wait! C’mon!” Bucky was surprised that Stevie Rogers could walk that fast on those skinny legs.  
   
“What do you want, Bucky?”  
   
“Just makin’ sure yer okay,” Bucky told him. “He just cleaned yer clock.”  
   
“I had him on the ropes,” Steve boasted.  
   
“Sure, you did.”  
   
“You didn’t hafta butt in, Barnes.”  
   
So, he remembered his name. Bucky was impressed.  
   
“Okay. Next time, I won’t.” That proved to be the only lie Bucky ever told him over the life of their friendship. He didn’t know at that moment that it would endure for a _lifetime_.  
   
“Good. I don’t expect you to jump in.”  
   
“Why was he picking on you? Did you start it?”  
   
“Guess I did. I called him an idiot after he-” And Steve clapped his mouth shut.  
   
“After what? What’d he do?”  
   
Steve stopped, and he noticed that Jamie was with Frank back on the edge of the park. “They took your candy.”  
   
Bucky turned where Steve was pointing, chuckling under his breath. “He owes me a nickel.”  
   
Steve reached his hand deep into his pocket, and he withdrew a shiny nickel, holding it out to his rescuer. “Here. Take it.”  
   
“Don’t want it.”  
   
“Might as well. Buy yourself some more.” Steve shoved it at him again, and Bucky considered it, then plucked it up from Steve’s dirty, sweaty palm. He had a few cuts on his knuckles, and Bucky felt even worse that he hadn’t gotten there sooner.  
   
“Hey… you’re all banged up. You got anybody at home? To clean you up?”  
   
“I ain’t headed home yet,” Steve explained. “Hey… just… if I show you something, you won’t tell, will ya?”  
   
Bucky blinked. He craned his head around and peered back at Jamie and Frank, but they had already forgotten about him. Bucky turned back to Steve and gave him a furtive smile.  
   
“C’mon,” Steve beckoned, and they headed a few feet away to another elm tree. Bucky noticed a small pile of leaves that looked like they had been heaped there intentionally. Steve crouched down and began to paw through it, clearing them away. “Get down,” he told him. “C’mere. Look at it.”  
   
It was a small, dark toad. Bucky grimaced, but he hunkered down beside Steve and stared at it. The thing was battered; its chest looked half-collapsed, and it was bleeding.  
   
“It wasn’t hurting anybody,” Steve told Bucky. His voice held a hard edge, and regret. “Richard smacked it out of my hand. Then he smooshed it.”  
   
“You were holding it? It let you?”  
   
“They always do,” Steve said with a shrug. Steve lightly prodded the toad with his fingertip. “There was no need. I was just talking to him.”  
   
Because, Bucky realized, that was just what Steve did.  
   
The toad was breathing strangely, and its leg jerked when Steve stroked it again. Those round, bulgy eyes were half-closed, and Steve’s face looked pained. “It ain’t right, when somebody big picks on something small like this,” Steve told Bucky. “He’s hurting.”  
   
“Stevie, he’s probably not gonna last that-”  
   
“Shut up!” Steve told him, turning on Bucky, eyes glittering. “You don’t know! You don’t know that! I can fix this!”  
   
“Stevie, you can’t…” Bucky’s words died as he watched Steve sit back on his haunches with the toad. He leaned back against the elm, sighing as he relaxed. That look was still on his face, and he cradled the unfortunate creature in his hands, then rested it against his chest. Then Steve closed his eyes, and he slowed his breathing. “Stevie…”  
   
“Shut up,” Steve hissed. “Gimme a minute.”  
   
“What the-”  
   
Steve grunted at him, more loudly this time, and Bucky shut his yap. Steve’s eyes moved behind his lids, and he was breathing more deeply, still cradling that pitiful looking frog, and the frog, for its part, was still lying still, but its eyes looked more alert. Steve’s lips slowly moved, but Bucky didn’t hear any sound.  
   
Yet… he _felt_ something.  
   
A low, warm current of energy passed from Steve to the beast in his hands. He heard the faint thrum of sound, and Steve’s breathing mingling with his low hum, not quite coming out as discernible words. Bucky shivered and he began to sweat. He couldn’t trust what his eyes were telling him.  
   
The frog began to move. It twitched and jerked in Steve’s grip. Its chest began to swell, and it took deeper, steadier breaths, drawing air in deeply through its tiny nostrils. Its legs began to twitch and kick, and Steve’s breathing fluttered, too; he swallowed, making his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, and that rapid movement of his eyelids continued, quickening even more, and Steve’s head jerked back against the tree.  
   
His robin’s egg blue eyes flew open, and he drew in a deep, heaving gasp.  
   
The toad had enough. It struggled from Steve’s limp hands and leapt away.  
   
“Shit!” Bucky swore, then covered his mouth, hoping to God nobody heard him. “Rogers…”  
   
And Steve was pale, breathing hard, all the color drained from his face. “Bucky... “  
   
“Stevie-”  
   
“Help me up?”  
   
It was one of the only times Steve ever asked Bucky for help. Bucky hoisted him up, got his shoulder up under Steve’s arm, grabbed his journal, and helped him home to his apartment.  
   
*  
   
So, Steve Rogers was special.  
   
Sarah came to tell Bucky about the circumstances of Steve’s birth over a simple supper of beef stew and soda bread. “Steven was kissed by the angels. He wasn’t going to survive. I had a difficult time pushing him out. He was so tiny and completely blue.” Her voice shook with the memory. “They couldn’t revive him. When they handed him to me to hold him, I thought he was gone. My heart was broken.”  
   
Steve merely ate his potatoes sullenly, unable to watch Bucky’s reactions as she told this tale.  
   
“But as soon as they laid him on my chest, and I stroked his soft hair, he opened his eyes. He knew his mother. He coughed, screwed up his little face and wailed loud enough for the nurses to hear him down the hall.” Sarah looked fond. “Sweetest sound I ever heard. Joseph told me he was a fighter.”  
   
“He was right,” Bucky agreed. That made Steve glance up from his plate, and he made a face at Bucky, sticking out his tongue. Bucky winked back, hoping Sarah didn’t notice, since it was rude.  
   
Steven Grant Rogers was a handful. Always sickly, catching croup and the flu, constantly fighting off asthma and strep throat, ear infections, bronchitis, you name it. He had a leaky gut and a crooked spine. The doctors told Sarah that Steve wasn’t likely to grow much taller, but Steve wasn’t dismayed. Bucky figured that wouldn’t keep him from scrapping, anyway.  
   
*  
   
The boys spent a lot of time on the roof. Bit by bit, Steve revealed to him who he was, and what made him special. Gifted.  
   
Steven Rogers owned dryad blood.  
   
He held a kinship with green, growing things. Heard the speech of animals and plants and whispered to the trees. Steve could make a flower bloom by staring at it, by merely stroking the bud with a soft, stubby fingertip. Steve coaxed Sarah’s strawberries to ripen so she could make jam; her garden on the roof was bountiful and well-tended, but it was also kissed by Steve’s hands and breath. When Steve was pent up inside, he breathed more shallowly and his pallor was gray, but out in the open, he had roses in his cheeks. He practically _glowed_. The sunshine loved his fair skin and brought out golden glints in his hair. His blue eyes sparked with radiant fire.  
   
The boys wiled away their free hours at the park. Steve loved trees and the birds who made their homes in their branches. He whistled them down to the ground, and Bucky watched, rapt and thrilled, as a tiny robin perched on Steve’s shoulder and twittered at him curiously. No one did that. _No one_.  
   
But these tiny denizens of the park loved their favorite son. The Johnsons’ huge German shepherd never barked or snapped at Bucky again once he started walking Steve home from school. Steve healed their red maple tree of a fungus, and it slowly regained its glory, stretching its branches to the sky. Yet they would never know.  
   
They _couldn’t_ know.  
   
*  
   
Sarah hurried to her door, wiping her floury hands on her apron as she went. “Give me a minute, I’m coming!” she called out, and she peered through the peephole. “Goodness,” she mused, surprised at who was on the other side of the threshold.  
   
Mamie Wilson stood there, expression wobbling and eyes wet as she rocked her small, swaddled son in her arms. “There’s something wrong with Paul. He’s not keeping anything down, and he’s barely breathing! Please, help!”  
   
Sarah’s heart went out to her as she saw her distress and felt her anguish. It was so familiar, and she swept them both inside without hesitation. “I can’t get to the doctor’s quick enough, and Samuel’s not home from the factory yet. I didn’t know where else to go. You’re a nurse, so could you-”  
   
“You came to the right place. Here. Sit. Let me see him.” Sarah peeled back the blankets from the tiny face. He was a beautiful child, skin dark and flawless, with round, plump cheeks and long lashes, soft curls like wool, and a rosebud mouth. She sighed out a breath. “He’s beautiful.” She touched his cheek. It was hot and clammy. “Oh, dear.” She took him from Mamie, and the baby didn’t even protest the shuffling of being taken away from his mother. Sarah unwrapped him and laid him on the sofa and examined him, feeling his lymph nodes and his tiny abdomen. Little Paul cried weakly, and his voice sounded raspy and lacked gusto.  
   
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him!”  
   
“It’s an infection. Listen to his lungs. There’s fluid in them.”  
   
Mamie sobbed, shaking her head. “I kept him inside and bundled up. I don’t know how he could have gotten so sick! He was fine yesterday, but he started to cough last night.”  
   
“Put the kettle on.” Sarah lifted Paul to her shoulder, rocking him. “I need to assemble a few things.”  
   
*  
   
Steve and Bucky returned home later that evening, later than Sarah or Winifred allowed, with the herbs they harvested from the rooftop and a cutting from one of Mrs. Johnson’s rosebushes that she said they could take. Steve planned to cultivate it; the cutting thrummed with life, thirsty for nourishing soil and a warm place to flourish and take root.  
   
When they entered the apartment, Sarah was rocking a tiny baby, and Mrs. Wilson from downstairs was sleeping on the sofa. Steve smelled Sarah’s healing herbs and a decoction she used when Steve’s asthma was acting up. “Ma?” he murmured.  
   
“Shhhh. This little one is finally resting. Gave his mother a fright, he did.” But Sarah rubbed his little back fondly. “He’s doing nicely, now. They’re both tuckered out.”  
   
Steve smiled and put away the herbs, and Bucky quietly crept out. Steve started supper while Sarah let her guests rest.  
   
Steve sensed the baby’s energy, strong and vibrant.  
   
*  
   
The next day, Sarah was tired and drained. When Steve hovered over her too long, she waved him off.  
   
“M’fine, love. Go wash the dishes.”


	2. Doing My Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the world moves closer to war, Steve struggles to find his place in it. Stray magic still drifts through the populace, manifesting in the strangest of ways.  
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the last chapter was full of Bucky and Steve, but it wasn’t Bucky/Steve. Sorry for that, but you also just met someone very special toward the end of that chapter, and you will see him again shortly. Stay in your seats, folks. Intermission is over.

   
 **1944:**  
   
“Hand me that shoe polish, wouldja?” Bucky told Steve as he buttoned his khaki shirt. Steve was rummaging through their bathroom cabinet, helping Bucky to pack his bags. He found the tiny can and tried to hand it to him, but Bucky nodded toward his open duffle. “Toss it into the pocket.”  
   
“Ain’t leavin’ much behind,” Steve mused.  
   
“I ain’t cleanin’ ya out, pal. Don’t worry. I left a few parting gifts under the bed.” He meant the collection of girlie magazines and Blue Bibles they kept tucked under the bed. Steve grinned and blushed.  
   
“You’re all heart, Buck.”  
   
“Always thinking about my best guy.”   
   
Steve leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom, arms folded, watching Bucky get dressed. Both of them were still nursing headaches from the night before; Steve was still sweating the last of the whiskey out of his pores over their meager breakfast of eggs and toast. His stomach would hate him for it, but he couldn’t regret lifting one last glass with his best friend before Bucky shipped out. Steve’s 1A notice was tucked safely in his jacket pocket. He hadn’t shown Bucky yet, because he didn’t want him a) to worry about him, b) to bawl him out, and c) to fret about Steve after he caught his train in a couple of hours.  
   
Bucky was going to be furious with him.   
   
But the night before was precious, and they made the most of it. After Steve left the recruitment exam, he caught up to Bucky at the dance hall and watched his best friend lindy hop and fox trot until he wore holes in his soles. He made brief trips back and forth to their table to order drinks, fanning himself with his soldier’s cap, skin rosy from the heat of the club. There was so much light and life in his eyes, and Steve ached to see it. His best friend was going off to war. Steve wanted to take a picture of that night, of that moment when he and Bucky shared a small, knowing smile at that table before Bucky’s date dragged him back out onto the floor.  
   
The apartment already felt wrong as Bucky packed his things. His bed was neatly made and most of his civvies were already packed up in a trunk that he planned to take home to Winifred to keep, leaving Steve the rest of the closet space. Familiar things disappeared into the duffle, like his hair pomade and cologne, and the small photo of himself and Becca taken at his sister’s sixteenth birthday. Steve felt a small frisson of pride when he saw Bucky pack the photo booth strip of the two of them at Coney Island, two guys out on one last jaunt. Steve had forgiven him for making him ride the Cyclone, but not for the corn dog that he’d talked him into eating beforehand. All of the small touches that reminded Steve of Bucky were vanishing, hard proof that he was leaving him behind.  
   
 _For a while._  
   
Steve tried to suppress the jealousy that flared up inside him when they walked Bonnie and Connie home. Steve stepped politely back as Bucky leaned in and kissed each girl on the cheek at the door. It wasn’t the first time Steve had bombed a date after Bucky set him up; it was that he had to share his last night with his best friend with not just one, but _two_ dames that found Steve disappointing. The meaner side of Steve craved the admiration he saw in their faces when they looked at Bucky, strong and handsome in his uniform, about to fight for the honor of their country. Steve merely nodded his goodbyes to them before they left. On the train home, Steve fished out the small, forgotten bag of peanuts and ate a few; he let Bucky dig his hand into the bag when Bucky leaned against him and peered inside it, shooting Steve an accusatory, hurt look.  
   
“You were gonna hold out on me?”  
   
“Pfffft… eat your nuts, jerk.” Steve wasn’t looking forward to the struggle up the apartment stairs when they got back. Bucky was practically asleep on his feet. But when they keyed their way inside, Bucky got his second wind. Instead of collapsing into bed, they stayed up and talked well into the wee hours. Steve dug out the last of their stash of oatmeal cookies and warmed up some milk, and they just sat and talked and laughed about old times.   
   
They were in their undershirts, slacks and stocking feet, and Bucky suddenly turned to Steve and asked him, “Wanna go up to the roof? Just because?”  
   
Steve huffed. “Yeah. I wouldn’t mind.”  
   
They shoved their feet into their bedroom slippers and threw on their jackets, and Steve wisely brought up a couple of blankets. They made their way up the back stairwell to the roof and quietly crept out, careful not to let the door slam behind them. The sky was full of stars, competing with the street lights to shine the brightest. Steve went to Sarah’s old garden and peered mournfully down upon it. It looked neglected. They heard the low coos and fussing of the pigeons gathered up there, and Bucky smiled.  
   
“Probably shouldn’t have encouraged Paulie so much to lure these bastards here.”  
   
“He loves those birds, Buck.”  
   
“You enjoy ‘em, too.”  
   
“They’ve got some great stories to tell.”  
   
“Bet I don’t wanna know.”  
   
“You’d win that bet.”  
   
*  
   
The flock of pigeons treated Paul Wilson like kin, and the kid spoiled them, bringing up small bags of seed and cracked corn, and the dregs of popcorn on those rare occasions where his ma could spare him a nickel to see the show downtown. Paulie was tall and stout for his age and had Mamie Wilson’s coffee brown, long-lashed eyes and sweet dimples. He was only fourteen, but the kid was already boasting about all the inches he’d gained on Steve, always trying to get a rise out of him when he came to visit. He’d sidle up to Steve and bump their shoulders together, just for the sake of showing Steve that the crest of his rose over the edge of Steve’s. Steve invariably shoved him and handed him the watering pot. “Make yourself useful, kid,” he’d growl. “Water my ma’s basil.”  
   
Sarah had been gone two years now, and everyone whose lives she touched remembered her with fond tales and reflective smiles. Paul Wilson followed Steve and Bucky around like a shadow, and he had been a frequent visitor to Sarah’s living room. Mamie and Sarah would crochet and sip tea while they listened to the radio shows. Steve and Bucky often took him with them to the park to play ball, or to the pharmacy to pick out penny candy. Paul loved riding on Bucky’s shoulders the most, since he was the tallest, and he had a higher vantage point. But he loved spending time with Steve when the boys returned home from school. Steve taught Paul how to draw and read to him from his books in his deep, rich voice, making animal and engine sounds where they showed up in the story.   
   
They were a trio of contrasting looks and temperaments when they would go out. If Steve was defensive about anyone picking on _him_ for _his_ size, then he was ten times quicker to duke it out with anyone who even tried to pick on Paulie for being Black. Richard only managed _one_ unwelcome opinion on the subject before Steve was up in his face. Bucky felt heat rise up into his cheeks as he reached for Steve.  
   
“Take this, Stevie,” Bucky told him, pressing a quarter into Steve’s palm. “Take Paulie with you to the store to pick something.”  
   
“Buck-”  
   
“Now, Stevie.” And Bucky’s eyes brooked no further argument; they were icy with anger and the unspoken injunction that _Paulie doesn’t need to see this._ Steve’s lips thinned, but he took Paul’s hand and led him down the block. When Bucky caught up to them later, he was wiping at his split knuckles and had a few small stains on his shirt. Paulie glanced up at him ruefully.  
   
“Your ma’s gonna be mad with _you_.”  
   
“Not if you don’t tell. Can I have some of those Sugar Babies?” Paulie didn’t protest when Bucky ate half the box.  
   
As time went by, Bucky and Steve finished high school and found jobs, Bucky down at the docks, and Steve at the newsstand selling papers and magazines. They had less time to play with Paul, but he still showed up at Sarah and Steve’s apartment in the afternoons to run errands for Sarah and to water her plants. Sarah would pay him a nickel to go to the store and dust her knickknacks. Paul also went up onto the roof to care for her garden. He learned by Steve’s elbow how to care for the herbs and vegetables, and over time, Steve shared his other secrets with him, too. The boys found that they had one skill in common, one that gave Bucky fits.  
   
They could both hear the birds.  
   
Bucky was up there one day, smoking one of the cigarettes he’d snatched from his father’s pocket, enjoying the acrid burn as it filled his lungs. Paul was up there feeding the pigeons from a mostly empty bread bag, shaking out crumbs for them to dive after. None of the birds were pecking at Paul, but Bucky was keeping his distance.  
   
“Nancy says you look funny when you make that face,” Paul told Bucky.  
   
“Nancy who?” Bucky was indignant. Who was spreading tales?  
   
“Over there. The one with the white feathers.” Paul pointed to a plump bird whose beady black eyes were fixed on Bucky. Her head was cocked, and Bucky stared at the bird, cigarette burning down to ash in his tight grip.  
   
“Jesus.”  
   
“She says you make funny lips when you blow smoke.” Paul was nonplussed as he continued to scatter the crumbs for his friends. As if to illustrate Paul’s point, “Nancy” hopped up closer to Bucky, continuing to eye him. She chirped up at him, making strange cooing sounds, and without warning, she launched herself up, wings flapping sharply, and she flew at Bucky’s hand. Bucky snatched it back, cursing at the small scratch on the back of it now. She knocked his cigarette from his grip and circled through the air, making a sharp arc back to Paul and landing on his shoulder. Paul reached up and scratched her head with the tip of his finger.  
   
“ _Paulie_.” Bucky’s mouth gaped as he pointed to the bird. “You...you… you’re like Stevie.”  
   
Paul shrugged. “They just talk to me. They like me.”  
   
“They like you.” It was the biggest understatement Bucky had ever heard.  
   
Bucky didn’t credit it to Sarah, even though he should have.   
   
When Sarah cured baby Paul of his pneumonia, she imbued him with a fragment of her essence. She gave him the healing herbs and medicines and lit incense and boiled eucalyptus leaves and lavender to create calming mists to help him breathe, but it was the physical contact of holding Paul, rocking him, stroking his hair and his tiny little back and singing to him that chased away his illness. Sarah drew on her own energies and Paul’s mother’s love, a strong, binding force of its own, to cure him and to strengthen his inner spark.  
   
And with that energy, came magic.  
   
The differences weren’t overly noticeable, at first. Sarah’s cure made Paul a more peaceful sleeper and increased his appetite. It also rid him of his troublesome gas and colic. Mamie was overjoyed that he recovered so quickly. He was a happy baby, constantly gurgling and cooing, the apple of her eye. He went from lying in his crib with his knees curled up against his stomach, screaming at the top of his lungs, to babbling on his back and reaching for the toys hanging from his mobile.  
   
Whenever Mamie would take him out in his pram, he was alert, babbling up a storm and always pointing to the birds. He loved them. Trips to the park found him pointing to blue jays, cardinals, robins and finches, and he would shriek at the ubiquitous flocks of pigeons and sparrows that overran the park and the sidewalks. He would just watch them with round, serious eyes, rapt and fascinated.   
   
If Mamie didn’t know better, she’d think the birds were watching her son, too. Constantly.  
   
*  
   
Steve remembered the chattering of the pigeons on the rooftop and the stench of Bucky’s Lucky Strikes from the roof as they headed to the train station later that afternoon. Bucky was off to England, and his eyes were a little misty as they left the Wilsons’ apartment. Mamie wept outright as she embraced him; Paul Sr. gave him a firm handshake and patted his shoulder proudly. “Listen to your mother,” Bucky told Paulie as he hugged him, too. “Don’t forget to water the basil.”  
   
“M’gonna go fight with you, one day,” he told Bucky.  
   
And Bucky wished to heaven that the kid would never _have_ to. But he gave Paulie a smile and clapped him on the back. Bucky saw it in Mrs. Wilson’s eyes, that she was worried about that exact possibility. She would hug her son that much more tightly after Bucky left.   
   
Bucky and Steve kept their topics light, staving off the enormity of Bucky’s departure a little longer. “So. What’d you think of Connie?”  
   
“What was I supposed to think?”  
   
“Eh. Just wondering. She was cute.”  
   
“Couldn’t get a word in edgewise while she was moonin’ over you, Barnes.”  
   
Bucky grinned. “Nah, she wasn’t.”  
   
“Then we weren’t watchin’ the same girl.”  
   
“The right one’s gonna come along one day, Rogers.”  
   
“Promise me you won’t be standin’ there when she does. No offense, Buck.”  
   
Bucky gave him a little shove. “Hey. Rogers. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Just, don’t give up hope. Promise?” Bucky paused for a moment to buy some cigarettes at a newsstand and a packet of licorice wheels. “Yer ma wouldn’t want you to be alone. The right girl might come along. Give her a warm welcome when she does.”  
   
“Bucky…” Steve’s mouth felt dry and his face heated up. He balled up his fists inside his jacket pockets, not wanting to give it away yet that he was off to basic training himself in another three weeks. Shopping for a Mrs. Rogers was off the table at the moment. But Bucky looked so worried, his gray eyes pleading with Steve and prying a promise out of him that he would stay safe. Staying safe, in Bucky’s mind, also meant settling down.  
   
“C’mon. Dust off those dancing shoes. Learn how to do a decent lindy hop while I’m gone.”  
   
“I’ll put it on the list. When I’m not helping Paulie collect scrap metal.” They’d joked about it before, but Steve still felt indignant. He knew it in his bones that he was meant for bigger things, that he had more to give to his country to protect it. Watching his best friend leave for the front lines stoked the fire burning inside Steve. To fight. To beat the bullies.  
   
Bucky handed his duffle to the porter, who also punched his ticket. The station was crowded with families saying goodbye to fiances. Husbands. Sons. Uncles. Nephews. Brothers. Maybe for the last time. When Bucky hugged Steve, he hesitated a moment, and he looked so much like the Bucky he’d first met on the sidelines of a fistfight at the park, eyes filled with dismay at the thought of leaving Steve unprotected and vulnerable. But this time, he clung tightly to him, not caring who noticed.   
   
“Please take care of yourself, Rogers,” Bucky growled. His voice was uneven, and Steve’s eyes pricked.  
   
“That goes double for you. I’m gonna find you. I’m gonna fight with you one day, Buck.”  
   
“You sure as hell better not!” Bucky pulled back, and his smile was wry. “I’ll tell every recruiter in town that you lied on your enlistment forms, pal. Don’t put it past me.”  
   
“Always were a tattletale.”   
   
Bucky straightened up and put up his dukes, and Steve laughed, because he needed it. He stood to lose so much once that train pulled away. As the conductor called for everyone to board, Winifred, George, and Becca showed up, hurrying through the turnstiles and rushing over. Winifred’s eyes and nose were already pink, but her hair was carefully done, and she wore her best dress to see her son off. Becca rushed him, hugging Bucky tightly and hanging on him.  
   
“You’re looking less hideous. Somebody took a bath,” Bucky teased.  
   
“I hate you,” she sobbed into his shoulder. “Don’t go.”  
   
“Take care of Dad.”  
   
“You know I will.” Becca withdrew, and Bucky swiped at her damp cheek with the edge of his thumb. “If you think I’m gonna miss your big, stupid face, you’re wrong. Did you pack the picture?”  
   
“You know I did, squirt.” Becca stepped aside to let Winifred embrace him, and she held him so tightly. Bucky breathed in her scent and her warmth; this was the hardest part of leaving. George stood by stiffly.  
   
“I won’t say goodbye,” his father told him. Bucky shook his head.  
   
“No, sir.”  
   
“Do what you’re told. Eat and sleep whenever you can. Keep your feet dry.”  
   
George made a haggard sound and reached for him, pulling him close. There was so much unresolved between them that the embrace couldn’t express or even remotely satisfy. When George let go, Bucky noticed how old George had grown, how much smaller he seemed, and it chilled his insides.  
   
“I’ll write,” Bucky promised them all.  
   
“You’d better, jerk,” Steve told him.  
   
“You, too, punk.”  
   
The walk home from the station once Steve and Bucky’s family parted ways left him feeling hollow. Steve strengthened his resolve, putting away the memories. He went through the apartment and sorted through his things, making decisions of what to give away, sell or throw out. Sarah wasn’t there anymore to hold onto his belongings.  
   
The next day, Steve gave all his old sketchbooks to Paul.


	3. I Assume You Just Took It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The serum made _most_ things easier. Running. Leaping. Lifting. Throwing.  
>     
> Sharing your feelings? Nah.  
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for staying with it this long.

  **2014:**  
   
“Y’know, Rogers, when I suggested you move back to Brooklyn, I didn’t mean ‘Hey, I’ll come over and help you move to Brooklyn.’” Sam wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his wrist.  
   
“Sounded like that was what you suggested to me,” Steve argued. “Hand me the tape, will ya?” Sam tossed Steve the packing tape reel and labeled Steve’s boxes of kitchen appliances and dishes that he’d already filled.   
   
“Figured someone with super soldier serum could’ve banged this out by now. Just blink my eyes, and hey, look! Whole truck’s packed!”  
   
“Somebody doesn’t want that beer I promised.”  
   
Sam looked taken aback. “Oh, it’s like that? Somebody doesn’t want these fragiles wrapped in this nice bubble wrap…” Sam dangled a glass wine flute precariously from his fingertips. “Oh. Whoops. Butterfingers…” Steve gave him a warning look.  
   
“Cute, Wilson. Fine. We’re still on for beer.”  
   
“ _Beers_. Plural.”  
   
To Steve’s credit, his downtown DC apartment was spick and span; Steve wasn’t in the Army anymore, but some habits never died. There wasn’t a dust mote in sight by the time Sam arrived that morning. Sam was just as anal about his own apartment, hospital bed corners and all. Cleaning was _cleansing_. It grounded him, gave him control over his environment.   
   
He pretended that the old black and white photos of Barnes that Steve had copied from his albums in the Smithsonian by a helpful curator didn’t bother him. Encased in sterling silver frames, hung in their place of honor above Steve’s mantel, or they were, until Steve lovingly packed them in bubble wrap and tucked them into his box of knickknacks. Or that it didn’t twist his insides when Steve would glance wistfully at them, distracted from whatever he was doing for one breath-catching moment.   
   
Sam was forgetting how to breathe around that damn Rogers. Seriously.  
   
Those blue eyes just looked so _sad_.   
   
Maybe not now.  
   
“Ya drive a hard bargain, Wilson.”  
   
“Hey, I never said I worked cheap.”  
   
That had the desired effect of bringing out that little smirk. Steve shook his head and went back to his packing. They made headway on the rest of the kitchen items for the next hour, until Steve’s secured cell phone played _Frozen’s_ “Let It Go” from across the room; Stark wouldn’t tell Steve how to change the ringtone, no matter how much he threatened him. Sam snickered, but Steve held up a hand to quell it, his own smile evaporating. It hit Sam, with cold gravity, that _no one_ called that secured line without top clearance. From the way he gripped the phone and swiped the screen to accept the call, it wasn’t Stark.  
   
“Rogers,” he growled.  
   
“Are you alone?” Fury’s voice was smooth and calm, but Steve heard the steely edge and connected all the dots, immediately recalling another time in his living room. Night time. Low music filling the space, underscoring Nick’s quiet, apologetic request to stay the night from bruised, cracked lips.  
   
“No.”  
   
“Then visuals are out of the question?”  
   
“Not at all.” Steve swiped the screen, pulling up a menu that moved the call timer to the corner, and he punched in an access code, activating the phone’s holographic display and patching him into Fury’s satellite signal. The room filled with filaments of light that sketched out Nick Fury’s image. His hologram nodded to Steve from a round cafe table dressed in white linen. Steve heard the low buzz of voices speaking casual, native French in the background. Nick raised his cappuccino cup toward Sam.  
   
“At least you’re in good company. Looking sharp, Wilson. Been working out?”  
   
“Been chasing cold leads, and chasing after _this_ smart aleck. I’m having second thoughts about not going on the road with you, Fury.” Steve failed to suppress his smile this time. Nick huffed, taking a sip from the delicate demitasse.  
   
“So, you’ve been getting shot at.”  
   
“Just another day in paradise.”  
   
“Just run _between_ the bullets.” Nick’s expression was hard to read from behind his dark glasses. He was dressed casually, wearing a Washington Nationals red baseball cap, North Face jacket and khakis, and brown Italian loafers on his feet. He looked every inch the wealthy retiree, relaxing after an afternoon of doubles tennis. “How are you enjoying the new upgrades?”  
   
“Haven’t gotten tired of them yet.”  
   
“Good. I like to see my boys enjoying their toys.”  
   
“Could still use a little more practice with the exo kit.”  
   
“Then I’m about to give you everything your little heart desires.” Steve folded his arms, shooting Sam a brief glance and stepping forward. If Sam didn’t know better, he’d call the gesture _protective_. Sam gave him back the hint of a smile that urged Steve _Don’t get your star-spangled panties in a twist. I’ll be fine._ “How long do you think it’ll take you two to finish moving?”  
   
“Rest of the night to unpack the truck in Brooklyn. I won’t be heartbroken if all the boxes aren’t unpacked for a while.”  
   
“Good. Because I’m gonna need you two to pack your bags. Meet Hill at Stark’s jet at twenty-two hundred hours. She’ll brief you.”  
   
“Where are we headed?” Sam prodded.  
   
“Montana. I suggest you dress warmly, Mr. Wilson.”  
   
It was on the tip of Sam’s tongue to tell him _I didn’t sign up for this shit,_ until he reminded himself that he _did_.  
   
When Steve signed off on the call, he told Sam ruefully, “Guess we’ll raincheck on those beers.”  
   
“You and your wallet got lucky, Rogers.”  
   
*  
   
   
Maria was thoughtful enough to stop at Starbucks on her way to the tarmac. She smiled benevolently over the recycled cardboard drink holder as they approached, both carrying modest duffles and equipment cases with the Stark Enterprises logo. (“Brand recognition. It’s important, okay? And, hey, if you scratch any of it, you pay for it, awright?”) At least, Steve reasoned to himself, the carrying case wasn’t metallic red. Tony used that much self-restraint. “You made it.”  
   
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Sam allowed.  
   
“Americano, right?” She handed him the cup that already had his name scrawled on it, and she smirked a little when Steve took the caramel frap, extra whip. The only flaw the serum left Steve Rogers with was a sweet tooth.  
   
Steve wore a simple, black leather aviator jacket over his stealth suit and dark ball cap over his blond hair; needlessly dark Ray-Bans hid his eyes. ~~But Sam wasn’t staring. Or drooling.~~  
   
“So. You’re probably wondering why I called you here.”  
   
“Enlighten us.” Sam handed his duffle and case to the luggage concierge and glanced around the waiting area. Tony’s engineering bots prepped the Quinjet, adjusting the fittings, fueling it and inspecting the turbines. Sam noticed that one of them had the AC/DC insignia welded onto its casing. Because _of course_.  
   
Maria reached up and touched the frame of Steve’s glasses, clicking a tiny button. “You’re looking at the schematic and layout of a Hydra base that we uncovered up in the mountains.” Behind the darkened lenses, Steve viewed the brilliant display of a large, armored facility, two stories with a sub-level and multiple satellites. The schematic showed him glowing indicators where the facility was armed with laser weaponry, compact cannons from what he could tell. “SHIELD was contacted regarding reports from the locals about missing hikers. We tapped the law enforcement database -”  
   
Meaning they hacked it.  
   
“ - and some of the reports matched intel that SHIELD had on file for suspected enhanced individuals.”  
   
That gave Steve pause. “Enhanced?”  
   
“That’s the term Fury prefers. General Ross wasn’t so kind.” The she chuckled. “Sorry. I meant Secretary of State Tad Ross.”  
   
“But SHIELD is surveilling enhanced citizens?”  
   
“Keeping tabs on them,” Maria corrected him.  
   
“Spying,” Steve argued, voice gruff. He took a sip of his frap and tapped his frames, running through the different views of the facility. “Who gathered the intel on this place?”  
   
“Who do you think? Romanoff’s still out in the field. You’ll rendezvous with her in the morning.”  
   
“Good,” replied a husky, feminine voice behind them. “She and I can get caught up. I brought some sudoku books so we won’t get bored, boys.” They turned to greet Wanda Maximoff, dressed in conspicuous, form-fitting red leather and carrying a weekender bag slung over her shoulder. She met Steve and Sam’s confused looks with a charming smile. “Did you get my white flat latte?”  
   
“Of course,” Maria assured her. “And a birthday cake pop.”  
   
“Mmmmmm, sprinkles…”  
   
Sam had difficulty making his mouth work. “Sooooo… she’s coming with us?” Sam was too much of a gentleman to remind Maria, _Didn't she just try to kill you all_?? But Wanda was distracted by her cake pop, taking a large, unladylike, indulgent bite. She made pleased little noises, eyes crinkling with contentment. She noticed Sam watching her and struggled to swallow, dusting crumbs from her lips before holding out her hand to him. “I’m Wanda,” she told him.  
   
“I’ve heard.” He surrendered his hand, guilty at his own hesitation. Hers felt cool.  
   
“Good… things. I hope.”  
   
Maria smiled benignly and clapped her hands. “That does it for introductions. Wanda will be on point to get you boys into the facility. This is a search-and-retrieve mission. Locate those hikers. Check for any other captives. Grab their intel. Then, shut it down. Piece of cake.”  
   
Wanda was polishing off the rest of the cake pop, pocketing it in her cheek and nodding. Steve cocked his brow. _Really, Hill?_ his look pleaded. Sam just rolled his eyes.  
   
*  
   
   
Wanda, true to her word, immersed herself in her sudoku books; Steve polished off five of the hardest puzzles before he lost interest and reached for a small, spiral sketchbook. Sam helmed the jet, shooting Steve a look of mock disgust when he accused him, “I thought you said you never said you were a pilot.” But he watched Sam from behind, comfortable in the cockpit. His Stark phone was plugged into the jet’s console, charging and spinning through Sam’s playlist. Etta James’ “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” filled the cabin; Steve’s pencil tapped in time against the spiral rings whenever he paused over an area of shading or a tricky line. Sam handled the jet on manual controls, despite Maria’s injunction that they would get there quicker on autopilot.   
   
“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that,” he told her, patting her shoulder and giving her his most benign smile, “because I value you as a friend. And you’re cute.” The quinjet cruised along like a dream.  
   
Steve paused in his sketching to get a bottle of water from the jet’s mini-bar. “Wanda, you want anythi-” He clipped his words short; Wanda had nodded off, book spread over her lap, head tipped against the tiny porthole window. Steve huffed, smiling at the way her mouth drooped open and the way her lashes fluttered while she dozed. Steve reached into one of the overhead compartments and took out a small fleece blanket, spreading it over her and tucking it around her shoulders. Wanda hummed in her sleep, turning slightly and tucking her hand beneath her cheek. Steve felt a rush of protectiveness toward her, just for a moment.  
   
It was so easy to forget a person’s faults while they slept.  
   
That didn’t mean that Steve wanted Wanda Maximoff poking around inside his head again, or twisting his memories and paralyzing him with uncertainty of what - and who - was real. Strangely, Natasha was the first one to let bygones (some of them, at any rate) be bygones. She offered Wanda the hand of friendship with the mutual understanding that Natasha could take Wanda’s life six different ways before she could blink.  
   
Natasha was the sister Wanda never had. They had standing coffee dates every other Tuesday.   
   
Wanda’s foray into the other Avengers’ minds showed a handful of kindred spirits, all of whom knew unfathomable pain and loss. It would take them time to trust her with secrets and feelings that she stole (“Borrowed,” she’d informed Tony on a difficult afternoon at the Tower. Clint had merely walked off, muttering “My brother Barney and I used to ‘borrow’ shit, too, lady” under his breath.) Steve, ever accommodating, offered Wanda his ear whenever she asked. Sometimes, they talked about Pietro. Steve went with Wanda back to Strucker’s abandoned compound and retrieved Wanda and Pietro’s belongings from their cells, and they wiled away several hours after their return poring through her old scrapbooks with pictures of the twins when they were little. Pietro’s blue eyes, dark hair and broad smile reminded Steve so much of Bucky that it hurt.   
   
Wanda’s apologies to him were profuse, but Steve wondered if Natasha was rubbing off on her, because she was one helluva nosy Parker. Wanda teased Steve about his lack of dancing skill and his bashfulness around Sharon, and she always wanted to hear about Peggy. She knew the furtive, fond smile he reserved for moments when he didn’t think anyone else was watching belonged to Peggy. Wanda knew that Steve’s hands still remembered how it felt to touch her gleaming sable hair or to slide around the perfect column of her wasp waist.  
   
Wanda gravitated toward Steve Rogers, drawn to him not only by his kindness and honesty, but by the pulse and flow of magic running through his being. Pietro and Wanda Maximoff volunteered for the genetic enhancement trials not only for the compensation HYDRA offered, as well as the chance to dismantle Stark Technologies; there were more important reasons. Magic imbued the twins’ essence and flowed through them from birth. The fortune teller at the Sokovian carnival stopped their parents and warned them to take care to protect them from “a false savior, like a shining knight, bringing ruin in his wake.” Pietro and Wanda’s father scoffed as they left her tent, making spinning motions around his ear with his finger. “Garbage,” he assured his wife. Pietro had kept the last photo of the four of them hidden in a crack in the floorboards of his cell. When the modification treatments and trials grew excruciating, he took it out to stare at it, tracing his mother’s features with his fingertip. He grew quieter, quicker, and more restless, his dark locks giving way to platinum. Wanda missed the hopeful dreamer who Pietro used to be, and her world was a crueler place in his absence. _Oh, how it still hurt._  
   
Steve’s grieving mirrored her own. Once in a while, she would squeeze his shoulder in passing and smile. Wanda was his lock and key, holding his wounds closed.  
   
Steve couldn’t let her catch a chill.   
   
Sam glanced up in the rearview monitors for a moment before craning his neck around. “She out?”  
   
“Like a light.” Steve wandered up to the cockpit, two bottles of water hooked between his fingers. He handed one to Sam, who beamed when Steve took the co-pilot seat. Sam wouldn’t admit that he’d been climbing the walls, hoping Steve would keep him company instead of being a Model Passenger. Steve sighed as he adjusted his seat to allow more room for his long, ~~tempting~~ legs. He unscrewed the cap from his water and took a long gulp, pursing his lips around it, and Sam felt a twist of arousal, envious of the bottle. Steve Rogers’ mouth. _Damn._ Steve sucked a droplet off the lower one and turned that soft, knowing smile on him. “Gettin’ bored up here?”  
   
“Are you kiddin’? I get to play with all of Stark’s toys.” Sam gestured to the array of monitors and scopes, adjusting a holographic image on the radar scanner with a swipe of his fingers, just because he could. “I’m having a ball.” Steve shrugged, and his smile widened a notch as he settled back in his seat. Steve had none of the awkward unease of someone unaccustomed to riding in the passenger seat; if anything, he looked relieved not to have to take the jet’s controls as the craft plowed smoothly through the drafts and clouds.  
   
“This is nice.” The displays made lights of various colors flicker over Steve’s smooth skin, and his clear blue eyes reflected them back at Sam, as if Sam needed that much more reason to drool over the man. _Focus,_ Wilson. _Eyes front._ “Almost makes me sorry we’re gonna hafta eventually land this thing and beat people up.”  
   
“Who are you kiddin’? That’s your idea of a perfect vacation. Pack your bags. Brush your teeth. Go somewhere nice and scenic with your closest friend. Hop on a motorcycle and punch out everyone’s lights within a three-mile radius.”  
   
“Four-mile,” Steve corrected him. The sass was strong with this one.  
   
“I beg your pardon.”  
   
They spent most of the flight like that, chatting and joking to put a better face on their assignment, hiding shared fear of not coming out on the other side of it behind easy smiles. If Sam had to walk through a wall of fire with anyone, nobody walked that walk better than Steve Rogers.  
   
Sam scolded himself silently for the unwelcome wish that they could both be passengers, huddled close enough to listen to each other breathe, watching the stars wink at them through the clouds. Yes, the quinjet had autopilot. But Sam was an adult. And they still had things to discuss and make clear.  
   
They cruised over the mountain range, and the GPS dinged at him that they were about to reach their destination. Steve had nodded off, head tipped back, body facing in Sam’s direction, empty water bottle in the cup rest. Over the edge of Steve’s wheat blond hair, something caught Sam’s eye through the window. Wings. Myriad pairs of flapping, dark wings streaked through the sky. Sam huffed, wondering why a flock that size was flying so late at night.  
   
 _Is there something we should know, Sam?_  
   
Sam felt heat flood into his cheeks, all the way up to the tips of his ears.  
   
 _Y’all just mind your business._  
   
Just to mess with him, the birds adjusted their flight pattern, shifting from the orderly, precise ‘V’ to a distinct heart.  
   
 _Seriously?_


	4. Crowded Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get tense while the boys lay low. Wanda and Natasha weigh in, without the benefit of an invitation.  
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I picture Wanda and Natasha being done with everyone’s shit, to an extent. Wanda doesn’t have a brother to take care of anymore, so the big, goofy super soldier will do quite nicely. And Natasha _knows_ Steve Rogers is hopeless when it comes to common sense or self-preservation.  
>     
> And where the heck are all these dang birds coming from?

   
 _Thunk!!!_  
   
“Ooh!” Sam winced and rubbed his forehead, making Steve glance at him again for the fifth time in twenty minutes.  
   
“You okay, Wilson?”  
   
“Fine and dandy,” Sam lied, and he felt his face tingle and flush again, because why couldn’t his life be easy?  
   
Another bird hit the Quinjet. The _cloaked_ , enormous Quinjet that Sam managed to land in a clearing, its radius thick with fir trees and wildlife that Sam didn’t wish to meet. “What was that noise?” Wanda wondered.  
   
“We’ll know in a minute.” Nat was unpacking Tony’s equipment, which included surveillance monitors, micro-cameras and bugs. “Hey, did you pick up marshmallows like I asked?”  
   
Wanda held them up triumphantly. “I did.”  
   
“That’s why you’re my favorite.”  
   
“We’re playing favorites, now?” Steve looked up from his shield, which he was inspecting for flaws, checking the strap and grips on the back.   
   
“Ignore those two, Steve.” Sam’s voice held judgment.   
   
“Yeah, ignore us, Rogers. You’re already Sam’s favorite,” Natasha announced. Sam shot her a blank look, and she merely smirked at him. Steve, nonplussed, just threw up his hands.  
   
“I already knew that, Nat.”  
   
“Isn’t that up to _me_?” Sam planted his hands on his hips.  
   
“It _could_ be,” Nat said. Sam saw trouble in those green eyes, and Steve’s smile faltered a moment. Sam took that moment to redirect, before he ended up saying something unfortunate.  
   
“When were you two going to mention the marshmallows? I’m offended. Shame on you, Romanoff, holding back intel like that.”  
   
“It’s what she does,” Steve said. He was looking pleased with himself when that earned him Nat’s dirty look and when Wanda bit her lip. Wanda ducked her face and busied herself unloading their other provisions, filling the cabinet. Stark charged the cabin’s rental to his black card, far off the beaten path from the rest of the properties on the mountain. The plumbing was impeccable, the kitchen was top of the line, and there was a gorgeous view of the slope.  
   
They were about five miles away from the HYDRA compound, according to Nick’s coordinates. Natasha patched into their satellite signal on Tony’s private channel. The feed slowly delivered everything: Personnel files. A schematic of every vehicle housed inside. Armory. And a roster of “John” and “Jane Does” listed as the compound’s “new acquisitions.”  
   
“ _Boszhe moi_ ,” Wanda muttered under her breath. She rubbed her nape and swung her eyes away from the monitor after skimming just a few of the entries.  
   
“You okay?” Nat inquired.  
   
“It’s… too familiar.”  
   
“I know.”  
   
Because _of course_ Nat knew.  
   
Wanda flinched when Steve touched her shoulder, then relaxed when he gave it a soft squeeze. “Sorry.”  
   
“You’re among friends.”  
   
“I know. It’s… fine. I’m fine.”  
   
“Whenever you wanna talk, kiddo.” The concern in his eyes was genuine. Brotherly. Wanda sighed, exhaling through her nose.  
   
“I’d rather set something on fire.” That raised Steve’s brows, but Nat applauded from the other corner of the room.   
   
“S’mores, it is.”  
   
*  
   
It was a perfect night for a campfire.  
   
“Let’s go grab some firewood,” Steve suggested as he shrugged back into his jacket. Sam felt a flicker of excitement. Firewood. He couldn’t have suggested a better reason to take a moonlit stroll with Steve. (Besides covert surveillance. But, still. Still.) Steve looked grateful to get away from the confinement of the cabin after their long flight. Leaves and twigs crackled under their heavy shoes, and the cold air made Sam’s eyes water a little. Steve fell into step beside him at an easy lope. They gathered branches and chunks of bark and listened to the sounds around them.  
   
“Hope they brought enough chocolate,” Steve said. “Man, I missed it.”  
   
“What?”  
   
“Candy bars.”  
   
“What? Plain old Hershey’s?”  
   
“Any chocolate bar at all. But, yeah. Couldn’t always get ‘em where we were stationed. You think MRE’s are bad now, you should’ve tasted the rations we had to eat back then. Chocolate bars were like _gold_. Candy bars and cigarettes.”  
   
“Got a sweet tooth, huh?”  
   
“Oh, you know it!” Steve grinned as he picked up another thick, fallen branch. “There weren’t many to choose from, but Bucky and I wanted whatever we could get.” Then his face shuttered. “He used to like licorice. Wasn’t my favorite, but to each their own.”  
   
Sam made a face. “All the more for him, then. I can’t stand that nasty stuff. Or anything that tastes remotely like it.”  
   
Steve chuckled. “No?”  
   
“Nope. I don’t want anise in anything you give me. Riley… Lord. That man nearly killed me with his Jaeger bombs.” Steve gave him a confused look, which was _adorable_ , making that little divot between his brows. “Jaeger. Jaegermeister? Foulest alcohol on the face of the planet?”  
   
“That bad, huh?”  
   
“As soon as anyone even hands you a Jaeger bomb, head right for the toilet and make yourself throw up. Cut out the middleman. _NnnnnnASTY._ ” Sam gave Steve his best _I ain’t jerkin’ you around_ face. “It’s evil. Burn it with fire.”  
   
“Note to self: Sam hates anise in _anything_.”  
   
Because, Steve _was_ taking notes. He trusted Sam’s opinions so far on music that he’d missed (“Sleeping on ice through the rise of Motown was an injustice, man. We gotta right those wrongs.”), and on restaurants he needed to try. (“You haven’t lived til you’ve had a banh mi.”) Sam was the best tour guide Steve could ask for as he discovered “everything he’d missed.” They took driving trips around the national mall, with Sam behind the wheel of his new Camry (his insurance company replaced his car, but his premiums went through the roof; his adjuster looked horrified as he took photos of his old blue sedan, minus its windshield, steering wheel, driver’s side door, and most of the roof) while Sam rattled off the names of the different museums. So far, the Smithsonian Air and Space was Steve’s favorite, and he’d had fun at the Natural History building, too.   
   
Once in a while, they fed the pigeons by the water. Steve was always impressed that Sam brought bags of decent bird seed instead of stale bread.   
   
Sam wondered how badly Steve would freak out if he casually mentioned it to him that the flock told him which brand to buy. It wasn’t something you just brought up in passing conversation. “By the way, Rogers, I’ve always been able to talk to birds. No, not just bird calls. Honest-to-God conversations. Where they talk back to me. Yeah. So.” To Sam’s credit, it wouldn’t be the worst conversation they ever had. Or even the weirdest.   
   
The worst had been their frank talk on the bridge, when Sam reasoned with the man he cared about that showing his lifelong friend mercy was a mistake that could get Steve killed. Sam knew he’d misstepped by the way Steve’s lips thinned, shoulders sagging and his hands white-knuckling around the rail. The weirdest? Sam couldn’t even quantify that anymore, not since Steve had begun sharing old stories from Italy and Germany. Sam’s regulars at the VA shared stories with him about IEDs. Rolled Jeeps. Gunshot wounds. Civilian casualties that woke them up in the middle of the night in tears.   
   
None of them ever told them about fighting a Nazi with a red skull for a face, or that their first love won his heart by decking a guy in the face during basic training.  
   
Sam enjoyed those talks. He enjoyed how eagerly Steve devoured new information and experiences, still that young, bright-eyed kid from Brooklyn. Steve had Sam on speed dial, and Steve began spending more time at Sam’s VA meetings when he wasn’t on assignment. It was good for him, even though Sam sometimes saw Steve in the back of the room, hands wrapped around a paper cup of the cheap, tasteless coffee, caught up in his own memories when the people around him shared their stories. Sam knew he was thinking about Bucky, every time, and missing the men he’d left behind when he brought the Valkyrie down.   
   
They kept gathering sticks, and Sam noticed a low, broken branch hanging off a birch. “That’s hanging on by a thread,” he mused as he tested it with his grip, beginning to pull it off.  
   
Steve hissed in pain. “No,” he rasped, “don’t!”  
   
“Huh?”  
   
“Not… not that one. It’s probably going to be too wet, anyway. Won’t burn well. Just get the ones that are already on the ground, Wilson.”  
   
“Okay.” Sam stared at him. “You okay? Thought you just startled a moment ago.”  
   
“Rock. In my shoe. No big deal, Sam.” Steve went up and laid his hand on the tree, sensing the wounded limb’s distress. “Oh, yeah. This wood is way too damp. Won’t burn well at all.”  
   
“I’ve built my share of fires,” Sam argued. “I slept rough, Rogers!”  
   
“I ain’t throwin’ any shade in your direction, Sammy. I just know my wood.”  
   
The bark felt dry as a bone to Sam, but he let it go.  
   
Steve silently poured his essence into the tree, healing the branch. Sam had already moved on, and he didn’t notice the fibers of the wood weaving themselves back together. He felt the tree’s answering shiver of gratitude. _He didn’t know_ , he assured it. _Won’t happen again._  
   
They gathered up enough kindling to make a decent fire, and when they got back, Steve eschewed the offer of a long-handled butane lighter from Nat and went full-Boy Scout, generating a spark with a hunk of flint and fanning it until it caught.   
   
“You’re ridiculous,” Nat pronounced.  
   
“Show-off,” Wanda chimed in.  
   
“Haters,” Sam argued.  
   
“Marshmallows?” Steve asked, smirking. They passed around more sticks of kindling, repurposing them as roasting sticks. They chatted as the sweets let off the mouthwatering smell of burnt sugar. Sam unwrapped four of the Hershey bars and passed Steve the first one, enjoying how those eyes of his lit up.  
   
“We should be going over more of the intel,” Nat reminded them.  
   
“S’more first. Retrieval and extraction goes more smoothly after s’mores,” Sam said.  
   
“You've been spending too much time with Tony,” Nat told him.  
   
“That was slanderous, Romanoff.”  
   
“Just being frank.”  
   
“Comparing Wilson to Stark?” Steve held up his hands and gave her a dubious look. “That’s just mean, Nat.”  
   
“Vicious,” Wanda agreed, since there was still no love lost. Wanda and Tony were a work in progress when it came to trust. They were never likely to be close, and the occasional barb from Wanda’s lips was to be expected. Nat and Wanda gave each other the eye over the fire; Nat raised her brow and tsked.  
   
“Don’t gang up on me.”  
   
“Here, take this,” Sam told her, shoving the chocolate in her direction. “Maybe this will sweeten up that bitter tongue of yours.”  
   
“Now who’s being dramatic?” Nat crowed. “You’re as bad as _this_ guy!” She pointed at Steve this time, and he mimed a shot to the heart. “I’d expect that from Rogers. He’s been single too long, so he’s crusty.”  
   
Sam let out a low “ooooooohhhhhh” and bit his knuckle against the impending cackle.  
   
“Okay. I was wondering when we’d arrive here,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Welcome to the Dating Game, with your host, Natasha Romanoff.”  
   
“You wouldn’t still be single if you’d ask out Kristen in Accounting.”  
   
“Nat. She’s not my type! We have nothing in common.”  
   
“You don’t know that. She’s well traveled and knows French.”  
   
“She has a weird laugh. And she never rinses out her coffee mug. Just leaves it there on her desk overnight.”  
   
“Ew.” Wanda looked disgusted.  
   
“That’s… a dealbreaker,” Sam agreed.  
   
“Right?” Steve said. Sam tapped his fist against his chest, mouthing “I’ve got your back, man.”  
   
“There are worse things,” Nat argued.  
   
“Nope,” Sam told her.  
   
“Not much,” Steve pointed out. “Weird laugh. Unsanitary.”  
   
“This man’s a neat freak,” Sam told Nat, jerking his thumb at Steve. “Have you seen his apartment?”  
   
“Yes. And, you know, Sam, I’ve gotta hand it to you, Steve _is_ a little anal about keeping house. Like Julia Roberts in ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ before she fakes her death.”  
   
“Geez…” Sam shook his head. “You ain’t right, Romanoff.”  
   
“Uh… Julia Roberts?” Steve’s brows drew together in a look of cluelessness. “I don’t… know that one.”  
   
“Suspense movie. There’s this scene where they zoom in on her towel rack, to her washcloths-” Nat’s eyes lit up as she was describing it, but Sam made zipping motions over his lips.  
   
“Don’t spoil it for him!”  
   
“What? I’m not, but he wanted a point of reference, and the washcloths-”  
   
“ZIP IT!”  
   
Another precarious thump interrupted their bickering, and Sam sighed and rolled his eyes. “What is that?” Wanda wondered as she took a bite of her s’more, licking her fingers.  
   
“Almost sounds like a bird hitting a windshield,” Steve mused.  
   
He noticed Sam rubbing his forehead again, but Sam waved him off.  
   
“So. Wilson.” Nat roasted another marshmallow over the flames, graham cracker laid over her knee where she sat. “Know any nice ladies we could set Rogers up with?”  
   
“Do I _look_ like eHarmony?” Sam asked, indignant.  
   
“You’ve got to know a friend of a friend of a friend,” Nat told him.  
   
“Sam’s still working on the girl at the front counter at the VA,” Steve said, smirking. Sam gave him a hurt look.  
   
“She’s coming around.”  
   
“Earl already asked for her number.”  
   
“Shoot!”  
   
“Gotta be quick, Wilson.”  
   
“You were supposed to be my wingman!”  
   
Wanda went back into the kitchen and dug through their supplies, and she emerged by the fire again with packets of cocoa and mugs.  
   
“I’m never gonna sleep tonight, at this rate, after all this sugar and caffeine,” Sam said.  
   
“Doesn’t affect me. I can drink a whole pot of it and still sleep like a baby.” And, Sam didn’t remind Steve, you can eat a metric ton of s’mores without gaining an ounce. Sam envied his enhanced metabolism, and it was driving him just a little crazy watching Steve eat, licking chocolate and sticky marshmallow from his fingertips. Those lips, soft-looking and deep pink, were distracting. Dangerous.  
   
Tempting.  
   
“Speaking of which,” Nat mentioned, “where ARE we all going to sleep?”  
   
That sent looks of confusion mingled with panic around the campfire.  
   
“Uh.” Steve’s smile evaporated.  
   
“Well, there’s gotta be… beds, right? Stark didn’t rent us a cabin and then expect us to camp out on the floor!” His smile was easy but less than genuine, and Nat didn’t pretend not to hear the unease in his voice.  
   
But she smirked at him. “Don’t be a baby.”  
   
“I call top bunk,” Wanda teased before she bit deeply into her s’more, demolishing half of it.  
   
“Please, tell me there aren’t bunk beds,” Sam groaned.  
   
“I get top,” Steve claimed.  
   
“Oh, the hell you do!” Sam narrowed his eyes. “I am _not_ sleeping under a super soldier, knowing how  much you weigh!”  
   
“What? I’m taller,” Steve reasoned, and maybe his eyes were twinkling when he said it. Just to get Sam’s goat.  
   
“Oh, by an inch and a half!”  
   
“I tower over ya, buddy. That’s just how it is.”  
   
“Aw, no, it ain’t. That ain’t how it is, partner.”  
   
Nat checked her phone when it beeped, and from the way her eyes flitted over the screen, it was a text from Fury.  
   
“Looks like we won’t have time to flip for it or draw straws, guys. Fury says we’re moving in on them _tonight._ ”  
   
*  
   
At least, Sam mused to himself, his flak gear was warm. Montana was cold as balls. Natasha removed her stingers from their charging dock before tucking them into the cartridge on her wrist holster. She grinned over at Sam, who returned an affronted look.  
   
“Hasn’t your momma taught you it’s not polite to watch a gentleman get dressed?”  
   
“Nnnnnnnope.” She popped the ‘p’ and shrugged. “No mom in the picture, Sammy. And the only gentleman around here is off being bashful and changing in the bathroom like the huge dork that he is.”  
   
“I should resent that.”  
   
“You should. But you’re no better at lying than Rogers, so.”  
   
“Ex _cuse_ me?”  
   
“I am _not_ sleeping under a super soldier,” she mimicked, deepening her voice and grabbing a little of his southern twang. “The hell you aren’t. You _would._  
   
Sam’s face blazed hotter than a jalapeno. “Keep your voice down,” he snapped under his breath.  
   
“Still haven’t picked rooms.”  
   
“Might not have to. This mission might be short. If someone does her _job_.”  
   
Nat narrowed her eyes. “You wound me, Wilson.”  
   
Steve exited the bathroom, slapping off the light smoothly and giving the two of them a dubious look. “What’re you two bickering about?”  
   
“Sam’s bickering. I’m not.”  
   
“We were having a discussion.”  
   
“‘Bout what?”  
   
“About how Natasha bickers with everybody too much.”  
   
“I do not! Steve! Steve, tell him I do not bicker!”  
   
“She’s right,” Steve pointed out, shrugging. “She’s _bossy_ ,” he corrected.  
   
Nat aimed her stinger at him, but Sam quelled her hand. “No.”  
   
“Nobody would know,” she promised.  
   
“It’d be on your conscience.”  
   
“Pfffft… don’t give yourselves that much credit.”  
   
Nat wouldn’t do Steve much damage in his flak gear, Sam decided. He wore it over his stealth suit with his more compact helmet; he nixed the one that Tony designed to be worn like a cowl, saying it made it too hard to turn his head. Sam was fine with it; the helmet didn’t impede his view of the long, graceful line of Steve’s neck. And his ass looked _damned good_ in those pants.  
   
“Are you ready to go?” Wanda crossed her arms. “Let’s get this over with!”  
   
Sam could have sworn he heard her mutter “Children” under her breath as they set out, following their compass and tracking signal to the base, through the heavily forested hills.


	5. Always Watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HYDRA always lingered beneath the surface, hiding in the shadows. Watching anyone they deemed a threat, or a possible asset.  
>    
> And, sometimes, the younger the recruit, the better.  
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a wild prompt to fulfill. It’s making me stretch my plotting muscles farther than I’m accustomed to.

   
 **1979:**  
   
The bird hut at the zoo was a symphony of screeches, cackles and twitters and smelled a bit like musty straw. Darlene wasn’t any more fond of it than she’d been of the snake and reptile hut, but the birds didn’t make her want to pick up her shoe and bash any of their heads in. Creatures with scales made her uneasy and her skin crawl. Paul kept pointing out the birds to Sam where he sat in his stroller, chewing on the straw of a Hi-C Fruit Punch juice box. He wriggled in his seat and smiled every time Paul imitated a bird call with stunning accuracy.  
   
“Will you stop all that carrying on?” Darlene hissed. “Folks are staring at us!”  
   
“Why? Me and my partner are having a good time,” he argued, grinning and giving his long-suffering wife a little shoulder bump. Darlene rolled her eyes and fanned herself with the small, paper guest program from the zoo’s visitor booth. They arrived at the zoo by mid-morning, but it was a few minutes before lunch time, and the day had grown hot. It was steamy around many of the exhibits, heightening the acrid, pungent aromas in the air. Darlene could happily live out the rest of her life without watching another seal show again. She thanked God above that Paul and Sam didn’t insist on sitting in the front three rows.  
   
Sam enjoyed the water acts, particularly the dolphins. But when one of the trainers, dressed in a slick wet suit, offered him the chance to come feed the giant orcas and the seals a fish, he balked and squirmed, about to throw a fit. He ducked his face into his mother’s neck, and Darlene hugged him, shaking her head at the trainer, who just shrugged and smiled.  
   
“Maybe next time, champ!”  
   
Darlene could only hope not.  
   
But Sam _loved_ the bird exhibits. He was a chatterbox from the moment they walked in.  
   
“That’s a toucan,” Sam told her solemnly. “He has a big nose.”  
   
“That’s his beak,” Darlene coached.  
   
“Beak!” he cried out. “He has a big stomach!”  
   
“He must eat pretty good,” Paul told him. He patted his own paunch to make his son smile. “Do you think he eats your mom’s lamb stew?”  
   
“Noooooooo!”  
   
Paul unbuckled Sam from the stroller and bounced him on his hip, and eventually carried him on his shoulders while Darlene transferred the souvenir bags and her purse to the stroller, giving her arms a break. Paul continued to make bird calls to entertain his son. And Sam imitated him.  
   
Surprisingly well.  
   
That was new. And… eerie. “Goodness,” Darlene murmured.  
   
They snapped pictures with their disposable cameras, which were flash-free. Paul chided Sam when he tried to lean too far over the railing. Sam sulked a little, but he kept talking to the birds, in random, continuous prattle, as four-year-olds often do.  
   
Sam tugged on Darlene’s skirt as she fished a box of Tic-Tacs out of her pocket. “Mama, he likes the red flowers!” Sam pointed to a small finch.  
   
“Where does it say that?” Darlene asked, peeking at the signs by each part of the exhibit.  
   
“He said it.”  
   
“He did?” Paul looked nonplussed, but Darlene raised her eyebrows.  
   
“The red ones are his favorite?” Paul asked.  
   
“Uh-huh. He ate two whole grasshoppers, and now he has a tummy ache!”  
   
Darlene leaned in toward Paul. “Did you notice that bird eating grasshoppers?”  
   
“Could be his imagination, sweetheart.”  
   
Paul didn’t point out that the finch had asked _him_ if he planned to purchase a handful of the seed in the dispenser by the door. _Greedy little bugger_ , Paul mused. And he told the finch as much. He cheeped resentfully back and flitted off to a different perch, much to Sam’s disappointment.  
   
They didn’t notice the man standing by the entrance of the hut, aiming his camera in the vague direction of the toucans. His camera shutter whirred and clicked as he took several shots.  
   
The child was intelligent. Gifted. The pediatric records they’d obtained told him he was exceeding his development milestones and was in peak health.  
   
HYDRA would find him useful, indeed.  
   
Samuel Thomas Wilson had his mother’s smile, he noticed. The agent didn’t know why that appealed to him so much.  
   
*  
   
 **2014**  
   
There was nothing Sam hated more than waking up with bruises and not remembering how he got them.  
　  
"Good evening, gentlemen. And, lady." The voice was unfamiliar, smooth, and pleased, like a used car salesman approaching a family that barely survived a three-car pileup. "I won't lie and say that I hope you're comfortable. We did catch you trespassing, after all." Sam's fingers felt numb and cold, and they protested his attempts to flex them. Reinforced steel manacles clamped his wrists in place, and his arm muscles burned, telling him he'd been out for a long time.  
　  
"Bet you're a crappy host," Sam muttered back.  
　  
"On the contrary, Agent Wilson. We've been expecting you. We patched into Stark's signal and picked up your jet on our radar. That's still a clever cloaking device, however. At first, our technicians just thought you were a commercial craft. But our resident psychic cured us of that misunderstanding."  
　  
"Psychic?" Steve's voice sounded slightly croaky off to Steve's left. "So. It's true. You've got enhanced people under your control."  
　  
"And on the payroll," their captor sniffed as he examined his nails. He sat several yards away at a large, circular desk. The red insignia glowed, large and oppressive, on the opposite wall, in case they needed reminding where they'd ended up. "Some of the world's greatest minds have flocked to support HYDRA'S cause, Agent. And they did so willingly. Enthusiastically," he added. The harsh lighting in the interrogation room picked out the details of his hunter green clothing and flak gear; HYDRA was ready for a fight as soon as Sam landed them on the mountain, and he cursed his own foolishness for thinking they got the drop on them. So much for sneaking in and out. Sam hoped Stark had a few more tricks up his sleeve, and that F.R.I.D.A.Y. was listening in.  
　  
"Not everybody's on your payroll," Steve countered, voice hoarse. He was trussed up like Sam and sported a deep cut on his left cheek and a laser burn on his shoulder that ruined his stealth suit. Sam felt annoyed; he _liked_ that suit a lot better than the flamboyant royal blue, striped number straight off the recruitment posters. "We'll be on our way once you surrender your captives listed on SHIELD's missing persons report."  
　  
"By 'We'll be on our way,' the Captain means we're going to hand your butts to you before we burn this place to cinders." Nat woke up in a spectacularly grumpy mood. Her lip was swollen, and her hair was mussed. Those responsible would pay. Her fingers reflexively went for her stinger's trigger, but her coordination hadn't fully returned yet.  
　  
"Bold words, Agent Romanova. They ring hollow in your current position."  
　  
"Where's Scarlet Witch?" Steve demanded. Sam realized his own bearings weren't back yet, if it took him that long to notice that Wanda was missing.  
　  
"She's enjoying our most generous hospitality. We're keeping her quite comfortable... unlike you." The operative flicked the button on a small remote and aimed it at the monitor on the wall. The image of Wanda flickered onscreen, locked in a containment cell walled in reinforced glass. She appeared dazed, eyes luminous and sparking with energy, but her face… her expression was empty, slack-mouthed. Steve and Sam recoiled in horror, and Natasha looked enraged. The cell looked cold and oppressive, and Sam knew Nat remembered too keenly how it felt to be controlled like that, and restrained. Her tales of her childhood in the Red Room were best shared over copious amounts of alcohol. Wanda wore a power-dampening collar and restraints on her hands. HYDRA was, in fact, very afraid of their own creation. “We figured Miss Maximoff would appreciate familiar surroundings. She seemed homesick. And it’s terrible to be all alone in the world. Especially since she lost her brother, thanks to Stark’s incompetence.”  
   
“Pietro died a hero,” Sam corrected him. “And Ultron went rogue.”  
   
“Yes. His ‘global peacekeeping initiative.’” The HYDRA operative made quotey fingers around it and smiled, nodding. “If Stark had investigated the intel that he stripped from HYDRA’s mainframe in Sokovia, he might have noticed a back-door program that infiltrated his AI when you and your Avengers invaded our base.” Sam and Steve’s faces reflected dawning horror. “The Baron was versatile with the tools that he was given. It’s a shame he had to die.”  
   
“Ultron killed him.” If Sam could have shrugged, he would have. “Boo-hoo, motherfucker.” Sam felt Steve’s disapproval of his language radiating from him, despite the circumstances. _Live with it, Steve._  
   
Sure enough, “D’ya kiss your mother with that mouth, Wilson?” Sam huffed. He heard Nat’s smothered sigh.  
   
“The Maximoffs were unique,” the operative continued. “Unlike the majority of our subjects, they came to us with latent gifts that had yet to fully manifest. They were strong, perfect physical specimens. They survived the Baron’s experiments and enhancements and passed his tests with flying colors.”  
   
“Didn’t seem like they were grateful to Strucker, judging by the way they beat feet,” Sam pointed out.   
   
“A minor miscalculation on his part.” Sam was satisfied to hear the annoyance in his voice. “One we won’t repeat.”  
   
“No. You like making _new_ mistakes,” Nat mused. Sam and Steve heard a gut-curdling, sharp click of bones being dislocated, right before Natasha twisted herself free of her restraints.  
   
“Oh, Lord, I’m gonna be sick,” Sam promised. Natasha slithered down to the ground, and holding up her good arm, aimed her stingers at the operative with a pleased smile.  
   
“Did I step on your moment?” He was already up out of his seat, drawing his gun from its holster, but she nabbed him with her stinger, right in the throat. His eyes looked stunned and rolled back in his head before he collapsed. “He was boring me,” she said simply. “You guys okay?”  
   
“Been better,” Steve mentioned, tone casual. “Mind getting us down, Romanoff?”  
   
Before she could reply, the alarm over the console sounded, bringing several guards in more green flak gear, weapons raised.  
   
“Gimme a second,” she hissed, and Nat slammed her shoulder against the wall, snapping it back into place before she waded into the thick of the guards, a graceful blur of limbs.  
   
“Damn,” Sam murmured, then winced. “Ouch. She did that. Your girl did that.”  
   
“Don’t let her hear you call her my girl,” Steve warned.  
   
“Already did, fellas!” Nat took down one of the guards with a kick to the jaw, then cocked her gun and aimed it at Steve’s left hand. She blasted the restraint before Steve could protest - or attempt to duck - before she went back to disarming one of the guards, nimbly wresting his laser rifle from him and jamming the stock into his sternum. Steve twisted his body and smashed the other restraint with his free hand, landing hard as he dropped, but he recovered quickly and smashed Sam’s restraints, too, catching Sam as he fell forward. Before Sam could get his bearings, Steve dove with him to the floor, making them both narrowly miss being hit by a laser blast. The beam scorched the wall where their heads had been. Sam reeled at the sensation of being knocked down, and HYDRA’s guard were still shooting at them, but that was, surely, nothing new.  
   
Steve’s hands were on him, and he had no time to appreciate it as Steve began to pat him down. “LOOK OUT!” Before Steve could help him up, Sam tackle-rolled him away from an operative that was about to bring his booted foot down on Steve’s skull. Those were Sam’s arms, wrapped around Steve’s torso. Protective. Desperate.  
   
“We need to get to Wanda,” Steve grated out.  
   
“In a minute,” Sam told him. He crouched and extended his wings, then drew them sharply around them both, shielding them from more laser fire. Then Sam retrieved a fallen pistol and began shooting, retracting his wings just enough to keep them in his sights. Sam and Nat made short work of the operatives in the control room, and he found Nat holding one by the collar, blood streaming from his nose.  
   
“You won’t make it out of here alive!”  
   
“That makes two of us, buddy.”  
   
“Natasha.” Steve’s voice was chiding. “Don’t.”  
   
“Don’t worry, Rogers. I’m just getting better acquainted with our hosts.” Nat tightened her grip on his throat. “Where are the other prisoners? What floor are they on in this hellhole?”  
   
“You’ll never find that out from me-” Steve came forward and pulled him from Nat’s grip, but his own was no less punishing.  
   
“Then maybe you’re going with us,” he decided.  
   
“Lead the way,” Sam urged.  
   
*  
   
Sam didn’t scold Steve for the way the operative’s feet weren’t _quite_ touching the floor (barely dragging along it enough to make faint, scraping sounds) as Steve pulled him along by the neck. They met and dispatched three more guards on their way down to the sub-level. Sam felt claustrophobic in the chrome-finished express elevator. Sam thought back to his old job at the VA: Free coffee. His own office with his name on the door. Decent TV in the break room with basic cable. No one shooting at him anymore. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was _his_. There was something to be said for agency. Autonomy. Security.  
   
But now, he worked with Steve Rogers. If Sam wanted there to be more, well… it was good to want things. It was. _Everybody needs something to wish for,_ Mom always told him. She usually laid that one on him when Sam asked her for something she had no intention to let him take out of the store before he was old enough for his first job. But that applied to things that weren’t _things_. Maybe Steve’s voice did things to him, and maybe Sam shivered a little when Steve casually brushed up against him when they were in close quarters, and maybe Sam spent a half an hour in Target smelling the entire section of men’s aftershave and body spray, trying to figure out which one Steve wore every day that worked so well with his chemistry. Sam had _so little chill_ and nothing, but _nothing_ , stopped him from inhaling the air as soon as Steve left the room like he’d been drowning without it.  
   
So. That left him here. Anxious. Heart pounding. Crammed into an elevator with Nat and Steve, a shifty man in green with an ugly red logo emblazoned on his flak jacket who looked too smug despite the fact that Steve was treating his neck like a stress toy.  
   
Nat was the first one out of the elevator, and she got first shot at the guards that intercepted them. She blasted the monitor in the corridor and the security cameras that captured her measured strut. Sam kept Steve’s six covered as they followed the corridor to the containment cells. Nat fried the security scanner’s touchpad with her stinger.  
   
“That was subtle.”  
   
“Don’t judge me, Wilson.”  
   
“I didn’t say it wasn’t effective.”  
   
“Yeah, yeah. Take care of that, would you?” She nodded to the operative sneaking up on Sam’s left, and he snapped his wing open, neatly kayoing him and making his rifle skid across the floor. “Nice.”  
   
“You’re gonna make me blush.”  
   
“You’re cute when you blush! Isn’t he, Steve?”  
   
Steve’s blooming expression of embarrassment was interrupted by a sharp click from the man struggling in his grasp. “Shit,” Natasha hissed as she watched his mouth fill with murky white foam, triggering the cyanide tablet between his teeth.  
   
“ _Prometheus five-oh-four!_ ” he cried out, and before they could even blink, the containment cells’ doors each automatically jerked open, swinging wide. Their former captor looked pleased, smiling even as his eyes began to glaze. “Time for you to enjoy… the rest of HYDRA’S… hospitality… a-gent…” Steve let him slump out of his grip. He was dead before he hit the ground.  
   
*  
   
Fighting the guards had been a walk in the park.  
   
They had their work cut out for them against the enhanced subjects, trying to subdue them without harming them. Steve had to remind himself of that as he struggled against a man with blue-tinged skin and strange, sharp, bony spines growing out of his back who was nearly twice his size. Sam witnessed the horrors of HYDRA’S manipulation as they swarmed them in the corridor. Men. Women. Children. Some grossly disfigured. Some with glowing eyes or discolored skin. So many with haunted faces. Steve recognized one of them as the homemaker and mother of three, who, according to SHIELD’S database, was a projecting empath before HYDRA got a hold of her. She was _screaming_ bloody murder, creating soundwaves that distorted reality and revved their emotions, making everything around them feel too intense. Unbearable.  
   
Natasha took her out with her stingers. “She won’t have fun waking up from that. But once she gets cleared by SHIELD medical, she’ll be serving her kids pancakes.”  
   
“You can still go easy on them!” Sam cried, right before a boy of about ten wielded a ball of kinetic energy around his glowing fist and hurled it at Sam.  
   
It didn’t tickle.  
   
“We’ve really gotta have a word with Fury about his intel,” Cap grated through his teeth as he drove his enhanced attacker back through the concrete wall.  
   
“I’m gonna spring Maximoff,” Nat called out. “And I’m going to find the control panel. It’s nearby.”  
   
“Control panel?” Sam groaned.  
   
“Every HYDRA base has one. All of ‘em have an off switch that makes everything go ‘boom,’ Wilson. Get with the program.”  
   
“Go BOOM?” Sam turned to Steve with wild eyes, before the kid with the glowing hands lunged at him again. Sam fought to hold him at arm’s length with mixed success. “I didn’t know the plan was to make everything go BOOM, Rogers!”  
   
“That was the backup plan!” Steve argued. “That was the final word from Fury!”  
   
“Fury never gives a ‘final word’ on a mission, Rogers. Keeps us guessing. Keeps them guessing, too!” Nat sounded way too cheerful for a woman shooting her way through four more guards on her way to Wanda’s containment cell.  
   
“Really need to have a word with Fury if we make it out of here.”  
   
“Wilson. C’mon. Keep the faith.” Steve paused and gave Sam his Disappointed Face before he hurled his shield into the corridor, taking out another approaching guard. Sam’s confidence took another dent when Natasha was promptly flung backwards out of Wanda’s cell, wrapped in a swirling nimbus of crimson energy. “Oh. Oh, no, that’s not. That’s not good.” Wanda wandered outside, neck free of the containment collar, eyes wild, hair swirling around her face. And her hands were free, already flexing and whirling with hostile intent. “Wanda! Stand down!”  
   
She turned on him, expression confused. “Intruders… like before. You… you took my brother from me.”  
   
“That’s not good,” Sam echoed.  
   
“Wanda… Pietro ran into the line of fire,” Steve reminded her, voice calm but with an edge.   
   
“You pushed him there!” She flung out her hand - Nat was regretting freeing her right about now - and wrapped Steve in an aura of energy that constricted around his chest. Her eyes glowed ominously red, and she cocked her head like a curious puppy. “You’re so good at leading heroes into battle, Rogers...not so good at burying them, are you?”  
   
“Lady, you don’t know the half of it.” His face showed regret, but Sam felt an odd pulsing in the corridor, watched Steve fighting his capture…  
   
...and nearly shit a brick when Steve _casually shook off Wanda’s magic like swatting a gnat from his arm_.  
   
“What…?”  
   
“What…?” Nat echoed.  
   
“That… he can’t do that… can he?” Nat scrambled to her feet, looking equal parts pissed and confused.  
   
“I’ve buried plenty of friends. Not just soldiers. I’ve lost people I love, kiddo.” Wanda shook her head and raised a hand to ward him off, push him back, but Steve advanced slowly.  
   
“He can’t do that, can he?” Sam asked Nat, wanting confirmation.  
   
“Not unless I missed something.”  
   
Several of the subjects took the opportunity to escape, not picky about attacking the guards instead of their saviors. A few obeyed their programming and came at the four of them again. Sam enclosed himself within his wings to avoid a nasty kick and swept his attacker’s supporting leg out from under him.  
   
“Wanda. Listen to me. It’s all right. Remember why you’re here.”  
   
“You want me to stay here. You want to leave me behind so they can use me again.”  
   
“No!”  
   
“You do! You don’t trust me!”  
   
“Trust takes time and work, but I believe in you. D’you hear me?” He needed to reach her. Wanda bit her lip and shook her head, and her eyes glimmered, their glow dying down and revealing their usual blue.   
   
“Get back!”  
   
“We don’t wanna hurt you. We just want to take you home.”  
   
“I… I have no… home. Pietro was… my home. He was all I had.”  
   
She was distraught and exhausted, and the strain of captivity made her desperate and unwilling to take their shit. “He wasn’t going to let them take me. But we had nowhere else to go. All he wanted to do was keep me safe. And then you dragged us along with you into hell. You Avengers, with your speeches and directives and honor. You’re as bad as the ones you fight, saying you’re doing it to protect while you crush everything else in your path.”  
   
“Jesus.” Sam’s voice was soft.  
   
Steve blocked the ward she was about to cast, jerking her hand above her head and dragging her close. “We need to talk.” Steve saw an empty containment cell and pulled her, kicking and railing, inside. He slapped the control panel locks on his way in, effectively penning them up and away from the melee. Wanda’s fists beat against him wherever she could reach, and Steve gave her a rough push away from him, releasing her. Her eyes and hair were wild, and she was breathing hard.  
   
“Let me go!”  
   
“Wanda. This isn’t you.”  
   
“There’s nothing left. There’s no more ‘Wanda.’ You’re as bad as Strucker. You all just want to use me.”  
   
“No. You’re free to do what you want. But don’t say there’s nothing left. We’re in your corner. Okay? We’re safer together. You’re my friend, Wanda. I know Pietro’s gone. I’m so damned sorry.” Her lip trembled, and she waved him off, unsure of whether to continue to fight him. “Okay? I’m sorry. I take responsibility for him being gone.”  
   
“Do you think that makes a difference?” Her laugh lacked mirth and she shook her head at him, throwing up her hand. “Strucker. Fury. They’re no different. You’re naive if you think any different.”  
   
“You and Fury need to have a long sit-down when we get back. And I’m _taking_ you out of here.”  
   
Her voice sounded so hollow. “This might be where I belong.”  
   
“Like hell.”  
   
She wavered.   
   
“I know what it’s like to be shaped for someone else’s purpose, and to be used. And I know how it feels when those same people feed you their mission and their line of crap when they tell you that it’s for ‘the greater good.’ This isn’t where you belong. You deserve a choice of who you let tell you what to do. Or if no one can.”  
   
“Bold words, coming from a man who still works for SHIELD.” Her chin jutted defiantly. “Did they ever keep you in a cell like this, Rogers?”  
   
Steve felt chilled all the way to his core, but he stared back, unblinking and determined.  
   
“You’re not supposed to lock yourself inside with the person who’s trying to kill you!” Natasha sang. Steve heard more laser fire and the thudding of boots and bodies in the corridor.   
   
“We can stay here and do this all day,” Steve told her, “or we can beat feet. Get the captives and round them up outside, climb back into the jet, head back to the tower and collapse.”  
   
“I don’t… I don’t belong with…”  
   
“Yes, you do.”  
   
“Not… out in the world. Strucker called us ‘enhanced.’ But he made us into monsters. I’m a monster. We were always different. But, we had normal lives. Good lives, until we volunteered.”  
   
“You can get your life back.”  
   
“As an Avenger?”  
   
Steve’s lips thinned, and he sighed. “I’m not gonna give you a lecture about how not to be a ‘monster’ or pretend that everything will be hunky-dory if you stay. But you won’t be alone. We’re a mess. We’re dysfunctional. But we’re family. Maybe we’re more like the crazy uncle who drinks too much at every holiday dinner and embarrasses the crap out of everyone at the table, but that still counts.” More laser fire. Sam’s shouts made Steve’s gut lurch with panic.  
   
“Oh, my God, are those growing out of your-” His voice cut off sharply, ending on a strangled noise, and Steve spun around, effectively abandoning their chat.  
   
“SAM?!”  
   
 _KA-THWAAAANNNGGGGG!!!!_ The door bore the impression of Steve’s fist and it bounced off the opposite wall of the corridor. He charged out after it, scanning the floor, with Wanda close behind him, and he found Sam engulfed in what looked like tentacles that threatened to smother him.  
   
“HUURRGGKK!! KKGGHH!!” Sam gasped and wheezed, brown eyes wide and terrified above the sucker-covered rope of flesh wrapped around his nose and mouth. His wings snapped open, but he couldn’t focus enough to break free. The wings beat the air futilely, and he dragged the enhanced creature - likely female, about mid-twenties - down the floor a ways, but she held Sam fast. Cold panic gripped Steve as he reached for those tentacles, attempting to twist them in his fist.  
   
“That’s enough! Give him back! LET HIM GO!”  
   
Natasha aimed her stinger, but Steve called out, “DON’T! You’ll hit Sam!” Sam’s eyes were round and frantic, and he nodded his agreement with Steve. Steve’s gut was a mess of knots at the sight of Sam struggling, nearly helpless. Nat was a sharpshooter, but…  
   
“Have a little faith, Rogers!” she called out, irritated, but she read the tightness of his expression, mulish and determined, and she recognized something in his eyes, briefly. Old loss. Witnessing the tragedy he couldn’t prevent.  
   
“Oh, fine!” she snapped, and she took a different tack. Natasha ran full-tilt toward the enhanced woman and mounted her shoulders in one leap, and she withdrew a wire garrotte from her cuff. Sam didn’t look relieved at the turn of events, and Steve’s conscience kicked in just as Nat wrapped the wire around her throat.  
   
“No! Widow! She’s not herself!”  
   
“Got any better ideas, Rogers? She’s stronger and less innocent than she looks!” As if to prove Natasha’s point, Sam’s attacker hissed and shrieked, more tentacles whipping out on reflex, and she fought Nat, trying to prize her off from her neck.   
   
A piercing, red halo of energy wrapped around her head, and she stopped shrieking, face stunned, and Sam felt the blessed release of her tentacles from around his face, no longer blocking his airway. The rest of the limbs ceased their thrashing and let him drop. He collapsed onto the floor, choking and gasping in huge, hungry gulps of air. The being collapsed, and Nat eased off of her, dusting herself off. She turned back to Wanda, whose eyes were glowing again, wearing an odd expression.  
   
“Thanks,” Nat murmured.  
   
“What are friends for?” Wanda’s voice sounded dry, and her fingers twisted gracefully, making her wards disappear.  
   
“We can talk about that, later. If you want.” That offer, coming from Nat, was rare and precious.  
   
Sam found himself tugged against the warm bulk of Steve’s body as he righted him, checking him over with surprisingly gentle hands. “Wilson. That was close.”  
   
“Naw. M’fine and dandy. Ready for a night on the town,” Sam gasped. His throat burned from the creature choking his windpipe, and he still saw black spots in his vision, but Steve was there, blue eyes filled with concern for him, and a hint of a smile toyed with his lips. “Quit being a mother hen.”  
   
“Then, quit being such a knucklehead.”  
   
“Pot, meet kettle.”  
   
“Time’s a-wastin’, boys,” Nat sang out. “C’mon. We’ve got a system to hack and a base to shut down.”  
   
“I’m going to sweep the floors and unlock the rest of the cells,” Wanda announced.  
   
“Go,” Nat agreed. The women stalked off in opposite directions.  
   
“Rest of the enhanced might be just as determined to rip our heads off as she was,” Sam said, nodding to the unconscious woman a few feet away.  
   
“I think Wanda will take care of that. She’s got a gift.” Steve pointed to his own temple, reminding Sam of Wanda’s psychic capabilities. “She’s got this. Have a little faith.”  
   
“I think she’s still got her doubts about _us_.”  
   
“Give her time.” Steve hauled Sam to his feet and wouldn’t release him, yet. Steve smelled like a combination of sweat and blast powder, his face was streaked with dirt and his hair was jacked up, helmet missing, but he was a sight for Sam’s sore eyes. “Ready to ditch this popsicle stand?”  
   
“Ready, Freddie.”  
   
*  
   
“Their firewall’s a joke,” Nat muttered. She sat in a plush leather computer chair, fingers flying over the panel’s keyboard. “For an organization that prided itself on infiltrating SHIELD, you’d think they’d have tighter security.” She scanned through the database, meticulously deleting banks of names of HYDRA’s people of interest. Enhanced. Scientists. Soldiers. Physicians. Private citizens with special abilities and skills. Professors. Philanthropists.   
   
Even children. Nat recoiled. “Never again, you bastards,” she told the screen as she programmed kill codes into each database. This time, there was no backing up everything onto a flash drive or any attempt to cover SHIELD’s ass. Enough was enough.   
   
It felt cleansing.  
   
Each entry in the database flashed with profiles, mug shots and demographics across the screen before they were deleted. It was like watching a movie on fast forward, and her green eyes could barely track it as the network continued to implode.  
   
One name gave her pause, and she hit the escape key to interrupt the destruction of the file. “Shit.”   
   
 _Samuel Thomas Wilson._  
   
“Born January fifteenth, nineteen-seventy-five,” she read aloud, “only son of Paul Jr. and Darlene. Honor student. Known abilities and enhancements…”  
   
Because of _course_ HYDRA knew that Wilson was a potential asset. Fragments of memory swam to the surface of Nat’s consciousness as she read Sam’s file. His allergies. His weaknesses. His father’s suspected abilities and medical records. Everything was listed so meticulously, including scenarios of how to eliminate him, in the event that he posed a real threat to HYDRA.  
   
Steve’s record was just as extensive. His father Joseph died in combat from exposure to mustard gas. Father of one, married to Sarah Rogers, registered nurse. Suspected genetic mutation. Threat risk: High.  
   
Nat swallowed down a rush of bile. She’d read enough. And when she found her own file, she didn’t even pause, hitting “Continue” when the system asked if she was sure she wanted to delete the record. Natasha Romanova would be no one’s open book.  
   
Steve and Sam caught up to her as she closed down the screen minutes later. Her expression was closed. “All clear?” She forced brightness into her voice as she got up. Sam and Steve watched every monitor in the room fill with greenish static before shutting down, and the corridors filled once again with klaxons and flashing hazard lights. Then, the room shook with the first round of explosions, and bits of rubble hit the floor.  
   
“Let’s get the hell out of here. Wanda’s already outside with the rest of the subjects.”  
   
“People,” Steve corrected Sam. “Now, they’re just people again.”  
   
“That’s going to take longer than you think, man.” Sam gave him a somber look, and his dark eyes were haunted. Steve reached out and squeezed his shoulder, and the touch grounded him. “I could use some air.”  
   
“Lead the way.”  
   
*  
   
“Getting some air” meant excusing himself once the local authorities reached the clearing around the decimated base, and the fleet of ambulances took away the last of the captives. Fire engine rigs sprayed the flames as the clouds of smoke stained the night sky. Steve was stern with the accompanying press, and he shoved business cards into their hands when they attempted to take a statement from him.   
   
“Contact Stark Enterprises’ PR desk. Ask for Pepper.”  
   
“Can you tell us a bit about this facility, Captain? It looks-”  
   
“No. There’s no explaining this. Not in any way that will make it easy reading to go with your morning coffee. Your town sold real estate to HYDRA and allowed funding for human experimentation. Think you can make a cute headline out of that?”  
   
The woman holding a small recorder quickly backed away. “All right, then. Stark Enterprises. Pepper Potts. I think that about wraps it up.” The photographers continued to take pictures while the police strung yellow tape everywhere and men walked inside in flak gear and hazmat suits.  
   
“Where’s Sam?” That was Nat’s voice by Steve’s shoulder.  
   
“He needed some air. And some space. He’ll catch up to us.”  
   
“We need to head back to clear out the cabin.”  
   
“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it.”  
   
The sternness in his voice was out of character, but she acknowledged it. Once they got back, Steve comfort-cleaned the space, disposing of dirty dishes and trash and tidying the bathroom and beds. He took a wistful look back at the cabin’s bedrooms, particularly the one with the queen-sized bed. It looked too soft.  
   
It probably wouldn’t have been that comfortable for the two of them, anyway. That still didn’t stop Steve from wondering which side of the bed Sam preferred.  
   
*  
   
“Rent was paid thru the end of the week,” Tony informed Steve over the comms as he guided the jet up into the clouds. The sun was just beginning to rise, and Steve felt himself decompress by slow degrees as pink and dark mauve streaked the sky. Nat and Wanda slept quietly in the back of the jet, slumped on the cots and bundled in the scratchy blankets again. Wanda was tightly curled under hers, fingers fisted in the thin knit, her only protection against the dreams. Nat slept with her stingers laid on the floor beside her and a loaded gun tucked into the magazine netting hammocked across the back of the closest seat.  
   
Sam was outside, clearing his head as he so richly deserved. If Steve was lonely, he didn’t tell him that, even though Sam’s comms were still on.   
   
“We were homesick,” Steve told Tony. “And Montana’s too cold for my blood.”  
   
“Steve. You’re from _Brooklyn_.”  
   
“Stark. I just moved. I’m ready to sleep in my new digs, in my own bed.”  
   
“Baby,” Tony sniffed. “Don’t say I never gave you anything, Rogers. You’re spitting in the face of my generosity.”  
   
“I’m gonna return some of that generosity. Namely, your jet in one piece. You’re welcome, Stark.”  
   
“Touche. Right.” Steve heard Tony cracking his knuckles in the background, one of his nervous tells. “How’s Wanda?”  
   
“She had a hard night. I think a camping trip is out of the question for her, too, this time around.”  
   
“Okay. So if you’re all not too cool to sit at my lunch table, Rogers, I figured we could do a briefing at the Tower tomorrow. Over alcohol. Lots of alcohol.”  
   
Before Steve could accept, he heard Sam’s hoarse voice over the comms. _”I’m coming in._ ”  
   
“The thought just occurred to me,” Tony said. “Where’s Birdman? He’s actually letting YOU fly?”  
   
“He trusts me,” Steve said, shrugging.   
   
“Remind me to buy him more life insurance, then. Like _those_ premiums aren’t sky-high. Okay. Don’t crash my jet. Night-night, Rogers.”  
   
“Night.” The link clicked off, and Steve noticed Sam flying past him outside the window, waving to him to have Steve open the hatch. He looked graceful and natural, wings fully extended as he soared on the winds, body streamlined and beautiful. Steve nodded and smiled, returning his signal before he pulled back on the lever. The hatch slid open, and cold drafts of wind rushed inside, and Steve heard the sharp snap of Sam’s wings as he propelled himself inside and came up the gangplank. Steve closed the hatch and waited for Sam to take off his pack and join him in the cockpit, hoping he wouldn’t take advantage of the cots, instead. He listened to Sam moving around in the back of the jet, stopping in the lavatory to relieve himself and make a futile attempt to clean himself up. The light clicked off behind Steve, and he heard Sam’s low footfalls approach, before Sam eased into the copilot’s seat with a long groan. He scrubbed his face with his palms.  
   
“I’m one big bruise all over. I want a whole jar of Vicodin once we touch ground. And a shower.” The tentacles secreted a thin film of greasy mucus that Sam felt like he hadn’t been able to completely wipe off. He felt funky all over.  
   
Steve gave him his Concerned Face. “You okay?”  
   
“Peachy. I just… I don’t like the feeling of being suffocated. Choked. Or being held underwater.”  
   
“Sam…”  
   
“Two tours,” he reminded Steve. “I was a prisoner of war on the second one. Riley was the one who got me out.”  
   
The memory of helping Bucky off the slab in the laboratory in Azzano hit Steve hard, recalling the feel of Bucky’s grip on his arm, the naked gratitude in his eyes.   
   
“Best wingman I could’ve asked for,” Sam murmured.  
   
“Damn right he was.” Because Steve worked with great men, too, each one of them worth going through the fire for, and never looking back.  
   
Sam tried to make himself comfortable in the seat, but he fidgets and squirms in it, readjusting the tilt and arm rests more than once. “Go lie down.”  
   
“I can’t sleep on those cots.” Sam sighed through his nose. “I can’t sleep. Period.”  
   
Sam’s thoughts were jumbled and loud, and even the birds were giving him unwanted silence for a change, offering him no suggestions.   
   
“You should still rest,” Steve told him. “You deserve a break. Come on, Wilson. Just… cut yourself some slack.”  
   
Sam twisted around in his seat to stare at him fully. “Cut myself some…?”  
   
“You’re bein’ awfully hard on yourself. Just… I know it’s hard. I know what it’s like to wonder if… it’s just hard after a retrieval like this one.” Steve stared straight ahead at the lightening clouds. “You always think about the ones you couldn’t bring back home.” Sam watched the muscles in Steve’s throat move as he swallowed. There were shadows under those blue eyes and he held the weight of the world in his voice and the set of his shoulders. “Phillips sent Bucky’s family one of his fancy letters explaining that Bucky was killed in action. They had to bury an empty casket. Couldn’t even send them his dog tags.”  
   
“I’m sorry.” Sam still had Riley’s tag; Riley’s parents received the other one on its chain. Sam kept Riley’s strung together with his own tag, the only way he could keep Riley with him. Sometimes, he held their scant, cool weight in his hand to ground himself when he was having a rough night.   
   
“I didn’t… I didn’t call them. Not when I should have. I wasn’t at the funeral. I could never tell them why I never protected their son. They were my family, too, after my ma died. They took me in. That was the worst part. Just knowing that I could never tell them how brave Bucky was. How he looked out for me. How much of a hero he was. How proud he would’ve made his pop.”  
   
“He did. They knew.” Sam contemplated a tear in his uniform pants, revealing a small burn scar that still stung. Steve’s eyes flicked over it for a moment, but he didn’t prod him or mother hen him. Not while Sam was in the mood to talk. “I went to Riley’s funeral. Hearing his mother tell me it wasn’t my fault didn’t do anything to convince me. It hurt even walking up to their front door.” Sam’s mouth was dry, and the words felt strange leaving it. “Seeing that casket. Draped in the flag. I still bring him flowers on his birthday. He always liked blue hydrangeas.”  
   
Steve smiled. “Ma loved those.”  
   
Sam returned his smile, bringing out the shallowest hint of dimple. “Me, too.”  
   
No to anise-flavored sweets. Yes to hydrangeas. Steve silently built his list of Sam’s preferences as he perused the menus on Tony’s console. He brought up the music selections and found Sam’s Spotify list. He hit the Play button, and the front of the cabin, once he adjusted the volume and direction of the speakers, played “Bring It On Home To Me,” making Sam’s smile deepen. Steve enjoyed his low hum of accompaniment as they cruised. He ached, and Sam had a crick in his neck and chafed in inconvenient places, but Steve was there. Steady. Calm. Warm. Watching over him.  
   
Healing.


	6. A New Dawn, A New Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha’s teasing comes back to haunt Sam. But he really doesn’t mind.  
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. I’m not going the smut route for this story. Sam and Steve need more time to build intimacy and get to know each other, and sometimes, cuddling’s enough. But the CUDDLING WILL STILL BE DONE, DAMN IT.

   
Maria Hill wasn’t the touchy-feely sort. At all.  
   
But one look at Wanda’s haunted, reddened eyes and pallid face made her hold open her arms as soon as Wanda came down the gangplank to the tarmac. The two women embraced for a long time while Natasha unloaded their gear and handed it to one of Tony’s concierge to load into her car. Sam was just about dead on his feet, unwilling to admit to anyone that he wished someone would hold him, too.  
   
“Well, this has been fun,” he said to no one in particular.  
   
“Sam. You’re not heading back to DC tonight, are you?” That was Steve, frowning and making that little divot in his forehead again.   
   
“I was halfway planning to go to the Tower for tonight, and to head back tomorrow.”  
   
“Did you have your heart set on the Tower?”  
   
Sam’s stomach flipped. “It’s not. Set. In concrete. Or anything.”  
   
Steve ducked his face and blushed, but when he glanced back up at Sam, he folded his arms and grinned. “Sure would be nice if someone came back to my place to help me finish unpacking.”  
   
“WHAT?!?!”  
   
“Suuuuuuure. Unpacking.” Nat’s low murmur and quirked brow made Sam want to reach out and swat her, but she strutted off before he could follow through. Sam had awful friends. Honestly.  
   
“Knew you had an ulterior motive, Rogers.”  
   
“I’ve also got a big screen TV. And a great view from the fire escape. And a nice roof. Strawberry Pop-Tarts. Orange juice. Can I tempt you a little?”  
   
“Pop-Tarts?” Sam looked impressed. “Now, why would I want to stay at Tony’s piddly Tower when you make me an offer like that?”  
   
Steve bit his lip.  
   
“Just tell me where to park.”  
   
   
*  
   
They met in the parking garage, and Steve took Sam’s duffle from him as they walked out to the street and then upstairs to Steve’s unit. The hall floor creaked a little under their feet, but aside from that, the building was solid, and as Steve keyed his way inside, Sam suddenly felt… at home. Welcome.  
   
“Make yourself at home.”  
   
“That looks like your kitchen that you still haven’t unpacked,” Sam said, nodding to the boxes stacked across the room. But his couches were arranged the way Sam remembered them at the last apartment, and Steve already had a few of his photos hung on the walls. Steve could feel a bit of Steve’s essence inside, calling to him. Wrapping around him like a blanket.   
   
He heeded it, heading to a bar stool by the kitchen counter and toeing off his shoes. “Is it too late to take a shower?”  
   
“Walls are pretty solid. My neighbors won’t mind.”  
   
“Good. Do me a favor and toss this mess in the incinerator when you have a minute.” Sam reached over his head and tugged off his shirt and tossed it at Steve, who laughed.  
   
“The flies are hovering over both of us right now, Wilson.”  
   
“That’s nasty.”  
   
“You can… you can use it first. I’m gonna find you something to wear. There’s already towels in there.”  
   
“Second door on the right, right?”  
   
“Yup.”  
   
Sam didn’t take advantage of the fact that Steve’s eyes were on him as he walked past, shirtless. “Just… leave everything outside the door.”  
   
“Aye, aye, cap’n.” Sam winked at him, just to get that blush and low snicker.  
   
Sam only paused to listen to his heart pounding in his chest once the bathroom door was closed, with his socks, briefs and pants lying in a pile in the corridor. He leaned the heels of his hands against the bathroom counter and stared in the mirror. His lips were cracked and his eyes were bloodshot, with bags under them. He was covered in bruises and cuts, and that burn was still stinging. Sam sighed. He was in Steve’s apartment. And Sam had no idea of how to proceed. How to get past whatever this part was. The hint of uncertainty breaking through his excitement.   
   
This was Steve Rogers.  
   
This shouldn’t be complicated. Sam turned on the spray, cranking the temperature a notch and filling the bathroom with steam. If he felt a little lonely, with the man who made his heartbeat quicken on the other side of the door, well.  
   
Sam let the spray course through his hair and beat down on him, washing away the stench of combat and gunfire, and he used a generous amount of Steve’s body wash to cleanse the strange film from his skin. The soap made his cuts smart, but the hot water soothed the worst of his aches.  
   
He heard Steve’s low knock. “I’m making tea. You wanna cup, Wilson?”  
   
“Only if you’re having one.”  
   
“I’ll leave it on the table.”  
   
“Thanks.”  
   
Tea.  
   
Another reason to stay awake a little longer and face Steve, and to figure out what this was. If Sam could decide what he wanted to say and muster the questions he longed to ask. He wanted to sort out how he felt whenever Steve touched him, albeit casually, and why he felt a tingle of excitement whenever he was close. He also wondered if there was a rock big enough for him to crawl under in case he managed to read this all wrong.  
   
Sam climbed out of the tub, dried off and draped the towel around his hips. He gathered his wits and stepped out into the drafty corridor; he heard Steve’s heater humming overhead, because Steve was thoughtful that way. Before he could make his way toward the kitchen for the tea, Steve emerged from the bedroom into the hall, a pair of boxers, pajama bottoms and soft gray tee clutched in his hand.   
   
“These should work?”  
   
“They will for me.” Sam took them gratefully, and their fingers grazed, sending little goosebumps up his arms. Steve was undressed down to his undershirt, uniform pants and bare feet. Sam really stared at him, taking in all the cuts and scrapes and the dark bruises blooming over all that fair skin. _The dark uniform hides the blood._ He was so much less imposing like this, less massive when he was stripped down. It hit Sam in a rush that Steve was still just… human, like him. Enhanced, sure. And hard to knock down. But, he was still vulnerable. And maybe, like Sam, Steve wanted to feel like someone was looking after him. Or just _cared_ about-  
   
“Sam?”  
   
“Yeah?”  
   
“You’re thinking too loud.”  
   
Sam opened his mouth, then shut it again. He huffed, shaking his head. “Steve.” He felt himself flush, exposed under Steve’s gaze. Steve licked his lips and exhaled long and slow, centering himself, before he closed the gap between them, just two small steps, took Sam’s shoulders in his warm grip and dipped his head to kiss him. Sam made a low sound of surprise and dropped the clothes on the floor. That was Steve’s mouth, soft and warm, stroking over Sam’s in greeting.  
   
Sam was dazed, but he was smiling as Steve withdrew, blushing and looking sheepish.   
   
“I didn’t ask permission, so I’ll ask for forgiveness instead, but. Y’know. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”  
   
“For how long, Rogers?” Sam’s tone was accusing, but his smile refused to falter so much as a millimeter. Because joy flooded him and left him giddy, and his hands crept around Steve’s waist, just because they could. They sagged together, and the soft cotton of Steve’s undershirt brushed against Sam’s abdomen.  
   
“From the moment I met you.”  
   
“So help me. You have no game at all.”  
   
“What?” Steve sputtered, laughing, and Sam leaned in and gave him another soft kiss.  
   
“You are _not_ smooth. ‘I’ve got a nice roof. And Pop-Tarts,’” Sam mimicked. “No game.”  
   
“Hey. You said ‘yes.’”  
   
“It would have been awkward if I didn’t.”  
   
“Jerk.”  
   
“Goofball.”  
   
“I still need a shower.”  
   
“We still need to talk. This doesn’t replace talking. You know that, right?”  
   
“Are you kidding? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this? Do you know how long it’s taken me just to get you alone for longer than five minutes? And in my apartment, without any comms or cameras?”  
   
“There aren’t any, yet?”  
   
“None.”  
   
“Make that shower short.”  
   
Steve smirked, and his eyes flicked down to Sam’s mouth. “Okay.”  
   
*  
   
After Steve’s shower, they talked until the sun rose, filling the kitchen with warm light. They slumped together on the couch, empty tea mugs on the coffee table, holding hands with their fingers laced together. Everywhere that they touched, from the bump of their shoulders to the brush of their knees, or the soft strokes of Steve’s thumb over Sam’s knuckles felt charged and new. And Sam knew his joy was contagious, because outside, all of the birds were singing and stirring up a ruckus. The clamor only grew louder every time Steve leaned in to kiss him.  
   
It hadn’t hit Sam yet that Steve’s plants basked in his pleasure, wrapped in the flow of energy radiating from him through his connection to Sam. His ferns shivered, growing new fronds, and Steve’s leafy herbs sent brand new shoots up through the soft soil. The branches of the elm tree outside slowly inclined toward the living room window and tapped the glass in approval.   
   
Steve came up for air. “You need some of those cuts bandaged up.”  
   
“They’re not that bad.”  
   
“I don’t want you bleedin’ all over my sheets, pal.”  
   
“Oh, that’s charming.”  
   
“Hey, I’m looking out for my best guy.”  
   
And did _that_ make Sam flush. Steve tickled him under the chin, then guided him into another kiss that deepened and lingered before he finally rose, dashing off to the bathroom for his first aid kit.  
   
His touch was so gentle as he smeared a split leaf of fresh aloe over the burn on Sam’s thigh to sooth it, and he decorated Sam’s skin with cartoon character band-aids after cleaning each scrape.  
   
“I’ve never been so coddled in my life. You’re ridiculous, you know that?”  
   
“You’re welcome.” Steve kissed the shoulder he’d just bandaged, and Sam felt a wave of pleasure. Now that it was okay, Steve hadn’t _stopped_ touching him, and it was difficult to keep himself from doing the same thing. Sam yawned and smiled at Steve apologetically.  
   
“It’s morning, and I’m ready to go to bed.”  
   
“We’ve been up all night. I’m tucking you in.”  
   
“Didn’t Stark want a briefing?”  
   
“Good luck getting it. Natasha’s not giving up her beauty sleep for the sake of a briefing, and he’ll have his hands full with Pepper giving him hell about what a PR disaster this was. Did you know that HYDRA base had a front as a pharmaceutical company? They listed the subjects in their database as ‘employees’ to the federal government and to the state.”  
   
“Jesus.” Sam scrubbed his face. He couldn’t believe the gall of some people. “Right. We’re going to bed.”  
   
“Which side is your favorite?”  
   
“The right.”  
   
Steve’s lips twisted in amusement. “Guess what that makes me?”  
   
“What?” Sam asked before it hit him. “Oh, no. No, you don’t, don’t say it, don’t you say it, Rogers!”  
   
“On. Your. Left.”  
   
“That was terrible, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”  
   
   
They wandered back to Steve’s room and closed the door. Sam sank down onto Steve’s mattress and climbed under the covers, and he was pleased to note that the bed was firm under his back. The sheets smelled like Tide and the duvet was heavy, and just the sensation of it tucked around him made him feel safe, but when Steve crawled into bed beside him and pulled Sam against him, encouraging Sam to curl his limbs around him and nestle his head against his neck. _Oh._ That was perfect. Magical.  
   
Before his body could even fully react to how it felt to be so close to Steve, his eyes drooped shut, and Sam was asleep in minutes. Listening to Steve’s breathing and feeling the rise and fall of that broad, solid chest beneath his cheek. Palming his heartbeat and feeling his own fall into sync.  
   
Absolutely magical.  
   
*  
   
   
Sam woke up to an empty bed, rubbing his eyes before sitting up. His bleary eyes told him it was after three PM, and the various Loony Tunes band-aids reminded him whose apartment he slept in, bringing everything into sharp focus. And then, Sam smiled, touching the Bugs Bunny strip covering a deep scrape on his shoulder. Steve had kissed it. Steve had touched him like he’d never tire of it.  
   
Sam reluctantly rose from the bed and rummaged in his duffle for his cell phone and then brought it back into bed. He propped the pillows high beneath his head and checked his messages. Everyone blew up his phone while he was unconscious.  
   
Fury: Status, Wilson. Don’t be shy.  
   
 _Presented and accounted for,_ Sam texted back.  
   
Natasha: How’s the view from Steve’s window?  
   
 _Ha, ha. Wouldn’t you like to know?_  
   
Wanda: What was that song playing on the jet? It was nice.  
   
 _Sam Cooke. Look him up on Spotify._  
   
Steve: I’ve got the Pop-Tarts, and they have that juice you like. Let me know if you want me to pick up anything else. And you’re cute when you sleep.  
   
Sam texted back a smiling emoji with blushing cheeks and a little bird. And a selfie of his drowsy smile.   
   
 _Hurry back._  
   
*  
   
They cuddled and lounged in PJs, munching on carbs and drinking coffee, watching the History Channel and a bunch of reality shows whose purpose Steve questioned every few minutes, but he couldn’t look away. (“What are the Kardashians famous for, again?”) Steve put the bouquet of hydrangeas he brought back for Sam in some water, making the space feel a little more like home. They eventually made their way up to the roof, and Steve showed him where he planned to put a small garden in boxes and barrels.   
   
“That should bring the birds to visit,” Sam murmured, leaning back to nuzzle Steve, whose arms were wrapped his waist from behind.   
   
“I wouldn’t mind.”   
   
“Be a good host.”  
   
“Why? They friends of yours?”  
   
Sam snickered, then nodded. Then, he mimicked the call of a starling pecking at the ledge for bugs.  
   
The bird cocked its head toward Sam and cheeped at him. _It’s about damned time._  
   
“Hey. Don’t judge me,” Sam said aloud.  
   
Steve’s arms tightened around him and he kissed Sam’s shoulder. “Everyone’s got an opinion.”  
   
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. Then, “Wait. What?”  
   
   
FIN.


End file.
